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kungukingi · 2 months

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Meditations on bris/isbr [9/?] "Unstoppable Force"

Link to previous part.

After Barou rejects Isagi's plea for help another time, Nagi offers him a 'prodigy's insight' (stemming from his personal experiences) that without accepting defeat, Barou 'won't be able to feel the frustration' that would propel him to view himself as something other than a king who doesn't need to change anything about himself.

The match continues and Isagi realises that while the coordination between Team Red only seems to be getting better, Team White is handicapped by Barou's stubbornness. At this point he concludes that they need to utilise Barou somehow to win, so he starts deconstructing his thought processes in a desperate attempt to figure out a way to counter — which leads to this game-changing revelation.

Isagi realises that Barou had a point, and that he really hasn't been trying to adapt to him as much as he's been trying to get Barou to play according to his own design, which is centred on drawing out each individual's strengths to induce cooperation-based 'chemical reaction' plays. But Isagi is not playing football just for the joy of playing with others, or for the thrill of getting people to execute his designs on the pitch.

"I'm not playing soccer to match someone else... I'm here to win!"

He's playing to win, and he specifically wants to win with his own power.

While playing with Bachira and Nagi, Isagi had veered back towards a more teamplay oriented mindset where it didn't seem to matter so much who would score for as long as they won the matches. A very pragmatic and smart approach considering how the Second Selection elimination operates, but also not too reminiscent of his core ego.

However, after witnessing Barou's unfaltering 'my way or the high way' mentality, he has to assume a more assertive role in order to utilise Barou, who is not going to just do what he says.

So, what Isagi does next is adapt to Barou's presence on the pitch without submitting to his will in the process. He realises that he doesn't actually need Barou's permission to leverage him — he simply needs to be smarter than him, and 'devour' his plays in order to become the 'ruler of this battlefield'. But the way Isagi ‘devoured’ Naruhaya in the previous match through 'assimilating and integrating attributes' from him is not something that he could attempt to do with Barou, considering they have such contrasting playstyles and unreproducible skill sets.

So what he sets out to do instead is to devour him in the other way from the two I outlined previously:

"Stealing" their performance by using their plays to propel your own.

When the match commences, Isagi notes how everyone except Barou seems to share the same implicit awareness of how useless he is for Team White at this point, and thinks up a way to leverage that piece of information. When his pass options to Nagi are sealed, he pretends he's going to pass to Barou to get him and the enemy moving...

...Yet proceeds to pass to Nagi instead, setting up a play that allows him to use Barou as a cover to make himself disappear from the enemy's eye. Isagi curls through the darkness that Barou has created as Nagi lobs a pass to him, after which he has this sequence of thoughts as he moves in to take his shot:

Isagi embraces the fact that while he doesn't have the power to change other people, he does have the power to change himself. And only through changing himself will he be able to become someone who can change the world with his own power.

And so, just like with the revelation Barou inspired in Isagi after the Team X versus Team Z match, here too Barou has unknowingly nudged Isagi in the direction of more egotistical playmaking. Isagi does not copy his techniques, but discovers new ways to utilise his own skills through being inspired by Barou's example and/or presence.

Through his mental narration, Isagi urges Barou to watch how he's found a way to devour him by making him a part of his own play by using his 'darkness' to turn his own play into a 'light' that stands in direct contrast to Barou on this pitch. It isn't simply that the spotlight is now shining on Isagi; he's the one who holds it, and through his goal manages to upstage Barou completely. And because they are so similar in terms of what they value and want to achieve on the pitch, Barou's expression instantly reflects the fact that he understands what has happened here — what Isagi has done to him.

After his goal, having now given up on the thought of being able to turn Barou's head around, Isagi tells him to just keep playing like he has so far (so that he can continue to predict and leverage those plays). And then...

When Isagi later thinks back to this specific moment, he explains it to himself as 'getting caught up in the moment' — which tells us that this wasn't calculated on his part. What I think is happening here is that he's still half-drunk on his goal and on the success of his plan, and that he had previously also swallowed a lot of feelings of frustration and even humiliation when he'd tried to get Barou to help him and Nagi — only to get called a loser.

So, essentially, I see this as a moment of payback, of Isagi asserting his dominance in a way that not even Barou can challenge in the moment as he's rendered speechless. The reason why I think Barou doesn't clap back at this point and try to get Isagi to eat his words right then and there is that he knows just as well as Isagi does that he utterly lost this particular encounter, and he hasn't got anything to show yet that could be used to argue against him.

After this exchange we get a glimpse of Barou's inner monologue for the first time. We are shown that the only part about what Isagi said to him just now that he seems to take issue with is getting called a 'loser', his very own trademark insult.

In Japanese this insult is the word "hetakuso" (下手くそ) which basically means someone who is really shitty at what they're doing.

[The fact that he takes such offence at getting called that himself, despite so readily throwing it around at others, speaks a lot about Barou's values. But I'll just put a pin on that for now.]

Barou of course doesn't just follow Isagi's instructions and 'play like he's done this far', but instead tries to do it all by himself, no longer thinking he'll get any passes from Isagi or Nagi. But Team Red has already figured out effective tactics for dealing him when he's acting as a lone agent, so he ends up losing the ball again after fighting hard for it. Afterwards he has to watch as Isagi claims the stray and assists Nagi in scoring Team White another goal, while he's ended up being used as a pawn in Isagi's design again.

After it's Chigiri's turn to score, Isagi makes this foreshadowing comment while Barou seethes in frustration while on the ground:

"An ego that could stay buried in front of Nagi and I... could never become the best in the world."

Next we get a glimpse into Barou's past as he thinks about his own weakness again, and at this point readers get context for both how he came about his rigid ways, and what is his intrinsic motivation to play. The narration of his past immediately starts with this:

"I... Shouei Barou... Had always been the field's leading actor."

This language of actors, roles, and the stage is very emblematic of who Barou is, but also of Blue Lock as a whole. His ego has always been the kind that Ego described as exemplary of a striker's mindset in his opening speech for the project:

So, in a sense, Barou's ego has always been 'the right stuff'. It's just his rotten personality that's allowed him to get so twisted up in his own perception of himself that he's now stumbling because he's never had to grow as a result of tasting true, personal defeat. So far he's evolved only through the hard work he consistently puts into his basic training, but that's no longer going to cut it.

Not after he's met Isagi, who not only does not submit to Barou, but also refuses to remove him from his own equations, and thus forces him to have a role in his designs.

When Barou used to get praised by his peers as a child for dominating the pitch, he wondered how could anyone find joy in simply supporting someone else's plays. He did not understand this mindset, and never even attempted to begin to understand it — but he did accept their service as he dedicated himself to the pursuit of 'his own type of play'.

Ultimately he grew into the realisation that it's not just the feeling of being the leading actor that he likes, but the feeling of getting to show others that they are not the protagonist by overwhelming their 'stupid dreams' with his own power. It's the same thing he tried to do to Isagi repeatedly; first in the Team X versus Team Z game, and then later when Isagi came to ask for his advice:

The first time around he almost managed to make a dent on Isagi's resolve, but ultimately Isagi took his words and used them as fuel to grow stronger (and more egotistical). By the time they trained together, Barou's words don't even manage to penetrate Isagi's skin, what with him being too busy to learn from Barou's example and then admire his skills and attitude in the privacy of his own thoughts.

But now they're here, in this 3v3 match, and the same Isagi whom Barou has repeatedly tried to make 'understand his place' has now managed to not only use Barou against his will to support him in his own plays, but is also shining so brightly that Barou is starting to feel a creeping sense of dread.

He really isn't willing to face the possibility that someone might make him taste his own medicine for the first time by pushing him into the role of a supporting actor. He proceeds to go into a bit of a frenzy, stealing Team White's kickoff and trying to score a goal from the half-way line. He doesn't succeed, of course, but the play leads into a situation where he is able to be the first to a stray ball with an unobstructed view of the goal.

Thinking this is finally his chance to 'be the leading man', he dashes forward, only to get raced by Chigiri. Not yet in his shooting range, he wrestles with himself over the decision to either shoot immediately or try to dribble closer at the threat of losing the ball — but before he can make the final choice, Isagi appears into his direct line of sight.

And I'm just going to put this whole sequence here because it speaks for itself:

Through changing himself, Isagi has made Barou taste true defeat for the first time, without even realising just how much that has impacted the self-assured king. In Isagi's mind, Barou has transformed from someone amazing with vast potential into a pawn he can use to score his own goals, a true supporting actor in the strictest sense of the word.

As he is right now, Barou is no longer worth Isagi's admiration. And once again, Isagi thinks he has him all figured out.

For now.

Link to next post.

#barosagi #barousagi #bris #isbr #Blue Lock #bris/isbr meta

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lady-of-the-spirit · 4 months

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⭐⭐⭐ Three stars for the director's cut!!!!!!

you sent three stars and I used the energy they gave me to give a longer rant than I thought I had in me lol

from the "Hestia Punches Brad" fic

“They think they know you from reading a file.” She scoffed, shaking her head. “I've known you for a lifetime, Loki. I remember when I first came to Asgard, scared and out of place, and you were there, pulling your pranks and- and being fun to mess with, and you made the worst of the early days better. That's what I remember - you always being there, making things better." Loki remembered it too. He had always liked to tease Thor by saying he was Hestia's first friend on Asgard, and as much as Hestia herself (his Hestia) told him she was grateful for it, he hadn't thought of it as making anything better for her. Loki had just thought he didn't want her to feel as out of place as be had. He certainly hadn't realized it had meant as much to her as it did.

watching this episode and skimming through past episodes I realized just like. how much the TVA assumes they know about Loki based on meeting his variants, reading his file. and to some extent, that's valid, omnipotent organization and all. but they don't know him. they don't know his thoughts, his feelings. and Hestia has ISSUES with how they treat him because of that, because sure, she hasn't read his file, she doesn't know everything he's gone through or what he was destined for, but she knows HIM. what can a file tell her that she doesn't already know? NOTHING. SHE KNOWS HIM MORE THAN THEY EVER WILL. THEY HAVE FACTS AND KNOWLEDGE BUT SHE HAS A LIFETIME OF MEMORIES AND A HEART FULL OF LOVE!

the history they share is a lot and so i'm gonna talk about that too. Hestia came to Asgard in a political marriage, estranged from all she ever knew, and it was scary! she had to figure out a role she had never thought she'd be in, in a place she didn't know or understand, learn all of the different culture and customs! with a husband who was kind and friendly, definitely, but there were expectations for them that she was afraid of, and so she could not let herself relax around him just yet. and Loki, being who he was, decided "Hmm. I'm gonna mess with her." both out of mischief but also like, his own way of showing affection. he knew what it was like to feel out of place and he saw she was feeling it and decided to try and pull her out of her shell in the only way he knew how, which of course was messing with her. only to have her turn the tables on him and mess with him right back. because somehow she figured him out and made his prank backfire on him. it wasn't what he was going for but, hey, she was finally relaxing as he and Thor and the other warriors were all laughing about the whole thing.

and that continued, with him easing her out of her shell - not just with mischief but through other means - and befriending her, making her early days on Asgard easier. he never acknowledged openly what he was doing for her, but she always knew, and she would always be grateful for it. That's the Loki she knows. that's the Loki the TVA's files don't show. and she hates that they won't look past their files to see him.

ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines / send in a ⭐star⭐ to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

#ask #dani-luminae #THEY'RE BROTHER AND SISTER YOUR HONOUR #my ocs #hestia #loki

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kdramabrainrotstation · 2 years

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Wamted to wax poetic about Oh Jinjoobut decided you might do it better.

Please explain to everyone why she is the best and how did your perception of her change throughout the show

i got so excited when i got this ask because i love love love talking about my girl oh jinjoo. ask and you shall receive, nonnie.

so initially in the show, you get a pretty stereotypical impression of jinjoo. she and gaon introduce themselves to one another and she comes off as the adopted-best-friend side character. she's bubbly, energetic, the polar opposite of shy, and very, very excited to be landing a job working under none other than kang yohan. my first impression, based on all of that, was that she and gaon were going to form a strong friendship and she was going to be there when something bad inevitably happened to help keep gaon afloat.

but almost as quickly, that impression is immediately shot down. jinjoo actively voices that she knows she was hired because of her appearance rather than because she would perform well as an assistant judge. i feel like the knee-jerk reaction with this would be to assume she feels some level of self-pity about it, but that's not the case. it quickly becomes clear that jinjoo took on the role of assistant judge, despite knowing why she'd been selected, with the intention of proving that she was so much more than a pretty face. she wasn't content with being one of the stone gargoyles perched atop an elaborate castle. she never was.

i think in the beginning, she was under the impression that she could work hard and earnestly and show her chief judge that he had made a good decision having her at his side. and while she was doing that, she got to enjoy a couple of things that it's implied she never got to have. she isn't wealthy, so the expensive dress yohan allowed her to keep, the fancy dinner, the rich person party and ballroom dancing, she was getting to experience new things in the process. i'd stop and enjoy the festivities too.

and then it kind of shifts in the show. jinjoo begins to realize that kang yohan is not the smiling face she has as a decoration on her desk. on top of that, he and gaon are spending more time together outside of work. she quickly realizes she's being kept out of the loop, and she does not take kindly to it.

which is where her character really shines. enter jung sunah, the one who decides to manipulate her. sunah is right on par with yohan in terms of clever tactics and shifty choices to help things move in her favor. she's been fighting to get where she is since the day she decided to kill her abusive mother.

and jinjoo saw through her tactic. i'll be fair and say that she didn't catch onto it immediately, but from the beginning, she knew that all of sunah's pelasant talk wasn't quite right. the praise was very true, but the way she utilized it and the interview/job offer that followed...jinjoo knew she was yet again being chosen for something other than her skills as a judge. she was being used as a pawn to take up a position so the chaebols could eventually put yohan in checkmate. yet again, she wasn't being appreciated properly.

but because of the way things were going working under yohan, jinjoo took it. sunah's flowery words promised something more than just sitting pretty. it promised her a chance to show she was so much more.

and who would have imagined that that something more would wind up being her manipulating those in charge of her new position into helping yohan in the end? that whole sequence where they made a stand in front of the rioters? it wouldn't have happened without jinjoo. yohan was stuck in between a rock an a hard place. jinjoo had preemptively come up with a solution, and that solution had included a very simple demand: they don't get to leave her out this time. she wanted to help. she wanted to prove her worth.

and i really think that she did. yohan understood then that she didn't want to be just a pretty face. and it was quite honestly so great to see her get to shine like that rather than being overshadowed by gaon, yohan, and sunah.

this post was a really long way around to my answering your question, but i couldn't help myself. so...jinjoo is the best because of the simple fact that she not only doesn't take kindly to being undermined or overlooked, but she's tactful enough that she'll play nice until she has a way to make sure you understand what she's capable of. she's also very sweet and compassionate, and she has a strong understanding of what justice should be. her speech during the live courtroom case involving bamboo spear was beautifully well-worded and even if he didn't think so, she put him in his place and let the rest of the country see it happen in real time. yohan appreciated it, despite her apology for speaking too openly. she's also just cute as fuck and i feel like she would be very fun to be around. i wish we could have seen more of her friendship with gaon in action.

my perception of her was pretty impressed from the beginning. i misinterpreted her for a solid one episode before i started to see that she was going to be a force of nature at some point during the show. right around the time she acknowledged that she'd been hired as a placeholder alongside yohan, i knew she was gonna find some way to scrap her way into recognition.

tl;dr: oh jinjoo is a spunky, fun-loving queen who will show you exactly what she's made of and you shouldn't underestimate her.

#the devil judge #oh jinjoo #oh jin joo

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pinnochiro · 3 years

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pinn reviews - final fantasy xv

a long ramble about final fantasy fifteen that sort of looks like a review, as written by someone who finished the game fifteen minutes ago and needs to get these words out of his head. spoilers inbound.

i'm a pretty big fan of video games. i don't know what my first was, but it was probably either banjo and kazooie or mario kart 64, at my cousin's house when i was very small. i think that video games as a medium are so interesting, since the fact that video games are inherently interactive changes the way that they tell any story. it's a shame that despite loving video games so much, i'm absolutely terrible at them.

i'm absolute dogshit at video games. whenever i boot up something new, i always play on easy mode because. i'm that bad. unfortunately, this means that a lot of video games are simply. impossible for me to beat. that's fine, as at the moment i live with my good friend lizz, who is certifiably Good at Video Games, and so we've been playing video games together for a little bit now. typically this means that she will actually play the majority of the game while i sit with her and watch, but occasionally i'll have a go, but she'll end up with the controller as soon as a boss fight or puzzle or a mechanic i just can't seem to grasp shows up. we recently played through the entirety of the kingdom hearts series together, and this was an absolute blast of a time. i'm glad to say that i adore kingdom hearts now, and it's become one of my hyperfixations, which you might be able to tell from my icon. but we'd finished the kingdom hearts series, and we were left to move onto something else. we'd also played final fantasy 7 remake, so in my wisdom, i suggested that we play another final fantasy game.

we looked through the ff games that were already purchased on our consoles thanks to lizz's uncle, and eventually, we decided that we should play. all of them. however to start, we were going to play final fantasy xv, 15, and work our way backwards through the mainline, single-player games.

i'd heard that xv wasn't very good, but honestly, i was still quite curious. one person who i'd been following on twitter for years was pretty obsessed with the main party members, to the point where i knew their names and what-not even though i didn't have much of an idea what the game itself was about. i remember watching a video by supereyepatchwolf a few years ago about how the game sucked, but i couldn't remember much of the details, and i knew, based on my obsession with kingdom hearts, that xv had started as a different game called final fantasy versus xiiv. i don't know all the details about versus thirteen, but i do know that it was originally helmed by the creator of my beloved kingdom hearts, mr tetsuya nomura, and that after many years, the vast majority of the game was thrown out, nomura wasn't in charge any more, and the whole thing was rewritten and reworked, which sounds like a fairly rough development cycle. but so what, i don't care about gameplay. i want to play the video game with those cute guys that i see fanart of on twitter, and lizz seemed happy enough to play through it with me.

and so we started final fantasy xv. i've been told that since the game was practically dead on arrival, they threw in a bunch of new content and reworked a lot of the early game before i got my hands on it. so my gameplay started with a scene of the four guys fighting some demon dude on fire and they're all old and grotty. whatever, that cutscene ends and we're put into a combat tutorial. that's over and we're on the road in what looks to be central america, pushing a car.

our four leading lads are noctis, the prince of the lucis empire, his best friend prompto, his bodyguard, gladio, and his chef and other things, ignis. i do quite like the main four members of the party in xv. prompto is quite easily my favourite, voiced by robbie daymond of goro akechi fame and with a bunch of fun little animations and quips that make him very likeable. he gets extremely excited at the idea of riding chocobos and has what i considered the best scene of the game, where he and noctis meet on a motel rooftop and discuss prompto's imposter syndrome, since he's only part of noctis' official retinue as his best friend. noctis is a fairly typical main protagonist, he's in love with a woman he hasn't seen in eight years and needs to go marry her or something, i don't care. gladio is a tough macho man with a mullet who wears leather jackets and wields a greatsword, and is apparently only 22, which is at least 10 years younger than i assumed. ignis is a strategist and chef, who takes on the most authoritative role and constantly tells noctis to not drive his car at night. i was not a fan of ignis at the start, but he grew on me, especially with how hard the game hit me with his personal arc. the four boys are off, driving to noctis' wedding in a different country across the desert when their car breaks down. we then run into the first issue of the game.

cindy is a mechanic. she also has her ass and tits out constantly, like your sleazy uncle's shirt with a naked woman was instead semi-alive as a video game person. she fixes your car and acts fairly sexual and it's just like. why do we have to do this. aren't we over overtly sexualised women in video games who have no reason for the way they dress other than the character designer was horny? whatever, i like women as much as the next guy, but cindy's design just. makes me feel so uncomfortable.

anyways you get to do a little driving around with the boys, until you stay the night before catching the boat to your fiance. overnight, you find out that noctis' kingdom has been basically destroyed by an invading empire called niflheim, and practically everyone noctis knows, including his father, are dead. you learn that noctis and his bride to be are also assumed dead, with noctis hearing his own death announcement on the radio. the game has a bunch of added cutscenes that are actually footage from the three-hour-long prequel movie that came out after the game, are extremely hard to follow and honestly i had no idea what i was looking at. anyways, noctis' family is dead, so it's time to do some hunting sidequests.

that brings us to the combat, i suppose. rather than the turn-based or even active turn-based combat that the series is known for, xv opts for more modern action rpg-styled combat. i was, naturally, terrible at this, but i managed to get around it with the fact that. it is almost impossible to die in this video game, provided you have enough items. the game allows you so much time to heal yourself that there's practically no way to have your entire party wipe unless you're doing absolutely terrible, and even then, your party members will probably try and heal you themselves before that happens. lizz tells me that the combat is boring, you just push the same button over and over and then you win. i do appreciate that, for someone like me who is terrible at reading enemy movements, there is a giant button that pops up on screen that tells you when to push the block button, but even then i was prone to fucking it up. whether that's the bad game design or my terrible gaming abilities is up to you to decide. anyways, the game is fairly easy but has annoying combat, your teammates limit breaks will only land about 50% of the time (or never, if you are gladio) and i was still bad at it, so i didn't have all that much fun.

instead of an active levelling system, the game will only tally your character's level ups when you either make camp or visit a hotel. camping is, in my opinion, the only saving grace of this game. each time you make camp, you get to see the characters doing fun little camping activities together and just hanging out, ignis will cook up a new meal in a dramatic fashion and everyone will compliment him and eat it off their coleman's branded plates, it's just very fun. you also get to see what pictures prompto has taken, which is one of my favourite gameplay features. prompto's passion is photography, and while i support him in this wholeheartedly, his picture taking skills are, quite frankly, awful. the game will randomly take shots while you're on the move, which leaves you with a delightful selection of awkward poses, characters hidden behind bushes, pictures taken while someone is half-dead in combat, and snaps where the natural lighting absolutely makes it impossible to tell what's going on. it's hilarious and going through prompto's collection of photos each night is honestly the best part of the game. we managed to wind up with a few shots that, even despite being scripted events, turned out absolutely terrible, and i will cherish those forever.

anyways, since noctis' father and fiance are dead, that leaves him the king of lucis. the only important person to make it out of the capital alive tells you to drive to the middle of nowhere, where he randomly springs on you. hey. go into a bunch of these dungeons and absorb a bunch of swords, this is your destiny as king and how you will defeat the empire. noctis goes, uh, alright i guess, and you're set loose again to wander around for a bit collecting the 'royal arms'. this plot point wasn't explained well but hey, whatever, we're collecting the glowy swords and that's fine.

you're introduced at some point to ardyn, the main antagonist. he's old, kind of groady and wears a fedora. he's a dick to you and talks about his automobeeel. apparently my friend miri thinks he's hot, she is wrong.

i can't remember what happens specifically but you're told that your fiance is still alive and in fantasy venice, and she's talking to the gods on your behalf to borrow their powers. there's a mission where you follow some purple trees that are electric, and you do that i guess. i enjoyed riding the chocobos around, but couldn't care much for the plot at this point. ardyn leads you to a volcano, where you fight a giant lava god. he tries to step on you and i, a denizen of the internet and with an active fear of foot fetishists, was extremely uncomfortable. noctis becomes friends with foot man and a lightning god who lived in those trees, and ardyn steals your car.

very upset by this, noctis and his gang risk everything to sneak into a military base and steal it back. because this is a video game, this works out fine.

there's a little mining city which is all about Girl Power, because all the Women run the Mining Industry like Girl Bosses, and you hang around there for a bit. because all the women are so Empowered, they wear bikinis all the time with overalls over the top. gladio decides he needs to fuck off for a bit, i have no idea what he does since i haven't played the dlc, and then he comes back with another scar. you hang out with his sixteen year old sister, who has a crush on the engaged and 20-year old noctis, and then you drive her to a lighthouse. when she's in your party, she can't really fight, but she gets a pink chocobo and i thought that was very cute. we turned out own chocobo white and lizz named him 'jones' after a mount she has in ffxiv.

eventually, you have a long boat ride over to fantasy venice. this is the part where the game stops being 'fun with a few issues in combat and a rushed and poorly told story.' the open world, which was a main feature with a bunch of little areas to find where noctis can fish, little hunting sidequests and random photo spots where prompto takes touristy photos, is now gone, and it will not return for the entire rest of the game. you can 'go back in time', but the open world was the most enjoyable part of the game, and it kind of really sucks that the main story doesn't let you have any more freedom like that.

after arriving in fantasy venice, you have a talk with fantasy hillary clinton and beg her to let your girlfriend summon a god into the middle of her city. hillary agrees, and you don't get to meet up with your fiance, because even if the game is constantly telling you how much noctis loves her, there is. barely any interactions between the two in the entire game. from what i can tell, they met when noctis was a child and they haven't seen each other in ten years but are still fantasy dog pen-pals. noctis marrying her was supposed to make an alliance or something like that, but her brother has betrayed her to the army. noctis' girlfriend is also an oracle, which means she can heal people, i guess? everyone talks about how important she is and she's constantly telling people that she needs to use her powers to help noctis but she's practically a non-entity.

as can be expected of most female love interests in a game primarily focused on men, noctis' fiance is killed while summoning a god for noctis to befriend. noct gets very mad about this, and turns super saiyan and kills the god back, but his girlfriend is dead and that's super sad you guys. there's a beautiful prerendered cutscene where she says goodbye to noctis but since we barely know her, and we've only been told over and over that they're in love without anything to actually well, show this, it didn't have much of an impact. fantasy venice is destroyed, and ignis is blinded while trying to help calm the giant raging god.

iggy's blindness and how the game makes you account for this and grow to care for him was one of the highlights, in my opinion, as well as crushingly depressing. while i'm not disabled and have no right to say if this was 'good disabled representation' or anything like that, i believe that the game handles it decently enough. the group falls apart as noctis is upset about his girlfriend, gladio is extremely mad that noctis won't care for ignis, and prompto just wants everyone to get along. there's a mission where gladio constantly yells at you passive aggressive things to noctis about how he's a cunt for running, which is obnoxious, but the character arc itself is fairly strong. when you make camp, ignis can't cook anymore, so everyone eats cup noodles in a depressing ass cutscene. ignis remains in your party for the rest of the game despite his disability, and he doesn't magically regain his sight like other fantasy media would do, which at the very least i think is good. i'm not sure what the opinion of actual disabled people is of the character, considering how often disabled characters are either turned into misery porn to make the abled audience be glad that isn't them and if ignis' arc falls into this trap, but i hope that it wasn't handled too poorly, as that would just be another terrible mark in this game's list of bad moves.

the characters eventually make it to the evil empire's capital, which is abandoned and filled with daemons. the characters learn that ardyn is super evil and taught the king of the empire how to turn humans into daemons, which has now happened to the entire city. the 'magitek suits', presumed to be enchanted armour that fights as the empire's infantry, actually house the souls of the human-turned daemons. honestly i like this as a plot point but the game handles it pretty terribly. there could have been more lead up to this, the explanation is pretty lacking, and prompto's Big Plot Twist is. terribly handled. turns out that prompto was born in the empire and was going to be one of those empty soldier daemons, but he was rescued by people belonging to noctis' empire. not that the game tells you that. instead, prompto goes 'turns out i'm one of ... them' and Does Not Elaborate. The game doesn't tell you shit, not about prompto's past, not about how he feels about this, not about how anyone else feels about this either because the other party members just go 'oh that sucks, good thing you're not evil' and the scene ends. robbie daymond tries so hard to sell these terrible, terrible lines, and it almost entirely fails, i'm so sorry prompto. fortunately because i'm a nosy ass, i read prompto's wikia page and knew the plot twist ahead of time, because i don't think i would have even registered it if i didn't.

anyways everyone in the evil empire is dead and ardyn starts talking about how he's immortal and an ancient king of noctis' country but the gods thought he sucked because he's too evil. i missed most of this because the cats got the zoomies and were dashing across the couch right in the middle of his speech so i can't tell you anything else. noctis tries to get a big magic crystal to fight him and instead. gets schlorped inside.

TEN YEARS LATER

yes then ten years actually pass while noctis is asleep. the game shows this by switching the head on noctis' character model to have a beard, but that's it, no changes in animations or whatever. the sky is permanently night and only one human civilisation remains, the rest destroyed by daemons. as a plot point, this ends up feeling. extremely worthless. why was noctis asleep for ten whole goddamn years? so we can wake up and go 'damn it sucks out here'. but it's barely even a like, incentive to fix everything, because you have a long talk with a former child you were friends with where he talks about how humanity is still going fine and everyone's okay and the world has moved on without you. it feels. pointless. when you meet up with your party members, they are exactly as you left them, only with slightly different character models. there is no change in the voice performance, the character's movements or how they talk to show that they've been without you for ten years. they barely mention it. i'm just. so confused as to why they decided that a ten year timeskip was the way to go? since nothing really changes, couldn't you have made it like, two years? one year? six months?? have the characters react a little more? something??? at least if it was only a year or so i wouldn't have to deal with the fact that noctis looks like norman reedus with his shitty facial hair now.

anyways after that there's a bunch of long and boring boss fights. you fight some dead kings for some reason, your party members get a little bit to talk about how cool they are and how much they love noctis, and then you meet up with ardyn. there's another boring boss fight and god this was only a few hours ago but it's already gone from my head. you summon the gods and the old kings to beat the shit out of him after you both go super saiyan again? there's incredible music but it feels barely earned and just kind of eh. anyways, noctis dies, which was the price of using the crystal of light or whatever the fuck. his ghost marries his fiance's ghost finally, and they smile as they look at one of prompto's pictures. you can pick any picture you want to go here, and then the credits roll, showing all of the pictures you saved of prompto's shots. showing me all the pictures at the end is honestly lovely, but it really only served to remind me of how much more fun the game was in the first half. and that's the end, of final fantasy xv.

so what did i think of the story? it's terribly cobbled together and struggles to get you to feel anything and play out all the plot beats. you feel awful for the countless employees who spent years working on the beautiful cutscenes only to have them be in this game, which sucks and the story barely gets through. there were parts that i enjoyed, mostly the thing about the daemons being people, but honestly the rest of it is a mess. it's hard to follow at the best of times and just awkward and terribly written at the worst. the ending is cheap, and it doesn't feel like you've actually accomplished anything. i left that game feeling numb and empty, sad that i'd wasted so much time to end up with such a colossal failure of a conclusion.

i had fun with the game when it was my four little guys running around doing sidequests and camping together. after the midway point of the game, there's none of that, and you're bogged down into a plot that just pushes you from point a to point b and boring overlong bossfight to boring overlong bossfight. the character moments between your party are a lot of fun, but the second you hit fantasy venice, everything is pretty much on rails and you can't do anything except what the game tells you explicitly to do.

should you play this game? no lol. if anything i've mentioned about the story interests you, you'll be better off watching a lore video or reading the wiki. if you do want to play it after all that, just don't proceed after the myrthril refining quest, it's pretty much all downhill from there. will i play the dlc? unlikely, i think lizz and i will just watch a cutscene movie of those.

this game left me feeling empty and numb and not in a fun way. i wanted, so, so hard to like this game, and it all crashed around me in a beautifully overproduced and confusingly written cascade. i love you prompto, but even your cute little freckly face and terrible photography can't save this trainwreck of a game.

tl;dr - final fantasy xv sucks. i hope that 13, our next ff game, will be better.

#ramble #review type thing #did you read all of this? im impressed #i did not proofread #so if its a mess #just pretend thats a meta commentary about the game itself #i wrote this for like an hour trying to understand the feelings this game gave me #final fantasy xv

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crabnby · 5 years

Text

ok @the-defiant-pupil i'm just gonna go ahead and make a new post bc this is about to get too long for my adhd ass

(context: continuation of this post)

1. funny thing is, i've actually read most of your sources already. they get really, really boring after awhile though, bc all of them start to say the same thing: yes there are differences, but there are also similarities, and scientists have yet to figure out the significance of this.

i'm not gonna go through each and every one of your sources, and i shouldn't be expected to either. when it comes to biological research, find the most recent articles with the most solid evidence/conclusions and call it good. don't dredge up an entire archive. i could find you sources that only characterize lichens as 2 symbiotic organisms rather than 3, but that wouldn't be correct bc the most recent research says otherwise. so yeah, just bc you CAN find that much info out there doesn't mean all of it is viable and should be used.

also, you can't just list a bunch of sources and expect it to be enough. you should contextualize them, explain them, tell your audience why each one matters. if you're really going to have that many, then be prepared to give a short annotation for each one bc i can guarantee you no one has enough time on their hands (or in my case, attention span) to read that many sources

your "plain as day" source by the way?? says this as well:

this is what i was talking about earlier!! do you actually read, contextualize, and analyze what you read? or do you just find the first line you agree with and run with it?

bc what i got from reading that article is that even after years of research and the largest study to date, scientists STILL don't fully understand what they're looking at, and they might never. so we, as people Not Actively Researching This Subject should be incredibly hesitant to draw our own conclusions when even the researchers can't do so.

i also like that the author mentions how socialization can affect brain structure and development — did you know that domestication causes visible differences in gene structure between the ancestor and current-day species? bc of selective breeding, humans changed the genetics of dogs, cows, crops, etc.; genetics changed bc of domestication, domestication didn't come about bc of a change in genetics. and i KNOW that you're going to tell me this has nothing to do w what we're talking about, but it does hold a similar concept: it's not just genetics and bodily functions that affect behavior, the environment has an equally important role.

similarly, gene expression in almost every species is highly regulated by the environment just as equally as it is the body (and for clarification: environment means anything external, body means anything internal). as are hormonal responses, reflexes, emotions, etc. all of which can have subtle but lasting impacts on the body! i don't actually think that anti-transmeds are trying to deny science when we say that how your brain developed is not the only thing that affects gender identity! i think it's kinda actually the opposite!

2. i've haven't heard of this tumblr biologist, so please direct me to their publications, i'd actually really love to read them

3. science literacy is a whole other beast than literacy in general. like, yes, you have to be able to read, but suddenly specific word choice and HOW you read articles becomes important. it goes from reading chronologically (english literacy) to reading section by section and contextualizing what you've read in previous sections and articles so that by the end you understand the initial hypothesis, if the evidence ACTUALLY proved it, if their methods were sound, and why it matters in the particular field.

i'm not trying to say that people who aren't studying science can't read peer-reviewed articles and understand them, but you do have to realize that it's a completely new skillset you have to practice over and over again, not just something you can pick up on the fly

4. i think you completely missed my point about the anti-vaxxer movement. the reason it started was bc McBastard Wakefield published his article and before any other research could be done to refute it or back it up, the greater population picked it up and ran with it. 7 or so years since it's been debunked and he lost his medical license, but people still believe him bc he got published, and to some of the most accredited journals at that.

my point was that just bc the research exists doesn't mean we should accept it at face value until the medical/scientific community can undeniably say "this is what this is, and what it means." and they're STILL doing further research, which means that hasn't happened yet. bc the whole point of science, and by extension research, is to never be satisfied w your results, and instead continue to look for more than you can currently see. or at least that's what i've been taught.

bc to look at published articles and assume that they MUST be true bc it's PUBLISHED SCIENCE is...exactly what the anti-vaxxer movement began on. and i'd rather not repeat that.

(please show me, by the way, how """tucutes""" 1. actually exist and 2. harm anyone by simply living their own damn lives)

5. yeah """""tucutes""""" don't have any science bc uh.....there really is none. science is a process, and we're currently in the research phase which means NO ONE should be using it as proof. it's good to say "hey this exists" but to completely invalidate someone's existence based on studies that scientists are still trying to understand? that's called abusing and misconstruing results

6. i'm guessing you don't actually care, but sure. i'll explain mating types of fungi to you.

in short: genetic diversity is advantageous for survival, and fungi are nothing if not crafty little bastards, thus 1000s of mating pairs for better chances of sexual compatibility

in long: each mating type is determined by a set of genes. really, you can think of mating types as extended alleles, since each distinct allele has a distinct mating type.

so as for 5 different mating types and how they're different...there you go. that'd be like asking me to tell you 5 different alleles of the same gene and how they're different. the only difference is in sequence and then how they're expressed due to differences in sequence.

usually we don't categorize every single mating type since that'd be a bit...much.

however, we can and do categorize fungi by how they reproduce! i.e., what kind of syntamy do they display? can they go through diploid selfing? can they inbreed or only out cross? what's their primary stage of life: diploid or haploid? do they rely on sexual reproduction or asexual reproduction? if it's an ascomycete, do they form pericarps or ascocarps?

in fact, one of the main differentiators between fungi is their life cycle, most of which is geared towards reproduction. that's why although basidiomycetes and ascomycetes are the only fungi that can form macro fruiting bodies (as well as many, many other similarities), they'll always be categorized differently.

but i digress. the reason i compared fungal mating types to brain morphology and "sex" categorization is bc i was making an analogy. i'm not a neurologist, as you can probably tell at this point, but that doesn't mean i haven't taken any classes that covered the brain pretty extensively.

what i was really trying to say was this: everything that i've read so far says that although there's definitely some differences between brains, there's also a significant amount of overlap, so much so that when you try to categorize the brain into two distinct types, you're still going to have an incredible amount of variety.

likewise, you could, theoretically, do the same to fungi. you could sequence the genes from each mating type, determine the different SNPs, and categorize them into two distinct groups based on what SNPs they do/don't have. it wouldn't make sense to do so, though, bc there'd still be too much variety within each group.

this was just me trying to relate it to what i personally study but tbh i can see how that would've been confusing, so i apologize for that

#sigh #trans discourse #anti-transmed #transmeds gain scientific literacy challenge

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