#it's just disparate scenes i have no real like narrative :( | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

2n2n · 1 year

Text

Lately I've been trying to run the simulation of "okay, well, what if Amane and Tsukasa confer with one another more than what we see?" and generally thinking about the possibility of more collaboration, permittance, between them.

Its the sort of thing that's as possible as it is not-possible; there is space for it to be true, but it just as well could not be. Not the sort of thing to have conclusions on, just something to reread top to bottom and consider the plausibility.

To start, I wonder often, if Hell of Mirrors isn't just a game between Amane and Tsukasa. Its not so far as something planned by either of them-- obviously, they are mutually shocked on sight and have completely unrelated reasons to be there, babysitting Mitsuba and rescuing Nene who he unexpectedly called out to via the photos-- but I don't feel certain that Hanako's entire processed response to it is earnest, and its almost easiest to see the scene as being for Tsukasa more than any other players. Nene being passed out for its entirety might be to embellish that... (to be true, she's not allowed in the narrative to see the first Mitsuba/Tsukasa/Hanako confrontation, either. These events cannot and do not impact her personal perception of their relationship, for whatever reason, and Kou exclusively defines their relationship based mostly ON these events... definitely a narrative disparity to create unique impressions)

Hanako: feels very performative in Hell of Mirrors. Hanako's nervousness during his declaration against Tsukasa/Mitsuba is odd-- I don't, personally, think Hanako 'fears' Tsukasa or what he will 'do' to him (well, in a violence sense, lol). That really isn't their power dynamic... we're more likely to see Hanako show no hesitation to manhandle him,

be openly, casually bothered by him, (even after the events of the first Mitsuba incident, he isn't any more intimidating baseline, to Hanako)

or just corrects him swiftly, not afraid to snip and command him,

none of which really look like the behavior of someone afraid to get bitten. He's more overwhelmed just by what Tsukasa can say to him, or rather, Tsukasa captivates him with his words easily. It doesn't often seem to be a very physical threat to Hanako-- but Tsukasa is his yorishiro, and we don't have a complete understanding of that, but it sortof seems like Tsukasa is closer to being at Hanako's mercy than the other way around....

Anyway,

Amane's stance, and speech, to Tsukasa feels very… 'put on' to me.

At the very least, it sure is awkward to be doing your whole responsible superhero schtick to your little brother, who knows your real personality and history ...

All Hanako's typical heroic epic posturing, dramaticisms, flourish, is for Nene to admire; it's perhaps kind of embarrassing to do around someone who actually knows him, and what this 'job' is, haha.

Maybe it's a little nervewracking to play along! Or to have the ruse engaged with on the same level he's been: IS this all a joke, a game, to Hanako? It has been, up until now, and for all of these years. And especially for his dynamic with Nene. This has been a sortof comedic game of gaslighting an ignorant girl into seeing you as a dashing hero, and not, perhaps, an imprisoned menace blackmailed into loyalty, eternally punished, and emotionally broken. Hanako himself knows he's not accurately portraying anything to her, that nobody would agree with his narrative.

If this scene is Tsukasa seeing if he can 'play' with Hanako 'on his level' and his terms (having spectated Misaki Stairs and the tenor of that), then Hanako is being a very good and gracious big brother, giving Tsukasa plenty of chance to take his turn... Tsukasa gets to state his own piece,

and, er... when it goes wrong, its like... ehm...

Hanako in general, is utterly performative FOR Nene to observe-- because he wants to propose himself, to her, as a cool, dashing hero.

Something he doesn't bother with for the other mysteries, obviously, who only see him as a lackadaisical pervert bore who doesn't take his job seriously, and doesn't care as much as he ought to.

So, in the event Hanako is doing his little song and dance speech of heroism, it's insincere, and a performance. A performance for who, here? Nene is asleep, so…. for Kou? I guess, though I'm not sure he'd bother with so much emphasis for Kou alone (he doesn't so much in the initial Mitsuba debacle, which lacks speeches and flourish, more somber). I'd almost think he'd want to be quick about things and get whatever nonsense over with. But maybe it's a performance for Tsukasa.

you're really trying to give your fail little brother a fair shot here maybe, patiently not making your own moves..... and, Tsukasa really isn't doing a great job at joining his big brother in the reindeer games....

trying to look cool and play with big brother, stop, RUINING IIIITTT come on come on come on do it right!!! Amane is waiting, we're in the middle of playing, come on come on!! Amane said the cool stuff!!! Now you say cool stuff!!! We're enemies in this game, you have to act like it!!!

But maybe for both of them, so 'new' and 'unsure' to this situation… this weird new dynamic… as a first foray into it, is, awkward, Tsukasa is impatient and eager to impress, and, Hanako is sweaty, trying to play along, his delivery isn't confident, and maybe it's a little embarrassing to do this.... in front of people, too.... hoy.... this has to at least 'pass' to Kou.... who luckily is so stupid and busy with his feelings he won't notice Hanako being weird and unserious

Trying to allow Tsukasa into this 'playtime'… surely Amane, of all people, could identify when Tsukasa is playing a role or goofing off, and that's why this chapter is so stupid and goonish nonsense. He knows Tsukasa won't really hurt him, but he doesn't really know what the endgame is here, either.... no precedent.

Hell of Mirrors is a comedy of errors REALLY, if this were an earnest proposal of opposing ideals, I don't think Hanako would be so glib and distractible and inconsistently engaged. And… you'd think he'd want to go back and readdress it, but he never does. Perhaps the scene accomplished all it needed to-- it certainly satisfied Tsukasa… wonderfully, this was no failure to him at all, he did what he wanted to (: which was, make Mitsuba into existence, and then, serendipitously, play with Amane...... an amazing surprise (: he did it ...! yaaaay! I-its kind of endearing if its like this, its good Tsukasa doesn't feel like that was embarrassing or a failure to play with Amane right.....

He didn't need Mitsuba to maim or kill anyone, not the objective. It clearly wasn't Hanako's objective, to really do anything, either, as he never comes back to this to finish the job.

We know what a 'serious' Hanako, not performing, looks like; he becomes, typically, aloof, tired, and exacting. He likes things to end efficiently. The airs of caring drop. He's annoyed to have to do something with his earnest strength, that people are not just bowing to his will, lol.

I draw a big distinction between fights Hanako is being 'serious' and ones he is being 'playful'. When dealing with someone contentious, you'll either have him earnestly pissy, sullen, or (to someone like Kou...) belittling (embarrassing for you to try to fight me).

He's a leetle serious... ffffor a second, in Hell of Mirrors. I'm sure Amane likes to 'win' games with Tsukasa, after all… and, this is his dogma, so, lets grill this set piece....

this panel is always like... lol. our hero

After this 'test' 'game', comes 'Picture Perfect', which sees Hanako and Tsukasa working together towards a common goal. If 'Hell of Mirrors' was actually a fun little check-in of 'will you play with me, Amane?' then 'Picture Perfect' is a logical next step: 'OKAY, you WILL play with me!'

Backing up,

In the first Mitsuba situation, Hanako becomes alerted to Tsukasa's presence in the school not via seeing or hearing him, but by Haku-Joudai flashing and alerting him after Tsukasa activates his Koku-Joudai to grant a wish. It would seem as if Haku and Koku Joudai, whether by choice or by nature, are linked. Hanako doesn't always come running when Koku-Joudai is used (suchas the crane situation, or just before the bookstacks, as Sakura wields it), so I have no idea if this is just sortof like a walkie-talkie situation they can nebulously use to ping one another at will, or what...

nonetheless, information about these dang orbs is so incredibly scarce in canon, and I'm sure whatever they have been, or can, be used for, is intentionally ambiguous for some, later drop of some kind. I simply keep it in my back pocket that for some reason, Haku Joudai detected Tsukasa's wish-granting and flickered to inform Hanako, and he already immediately understands how severe whatever it is, is.....

How often could discreet communication happen? How often does either know when the other does something?

A small pocket of time I find amusing, is that, for just a second, Amane and Tsukasa are alone together on the roof, tinkering with a classmate's telescope while Nene isn't observing. I don't suppose the boys have any reason to earnestly engage fakeass classmates once Yashiro is out of sight. I wonder if they had any words for one another here, considering how sneakily Tsukasa snakes in words to Nene in only seconds of company.

Nene spends some time here catching up with fake Aoi, a reasonable space of time for Amane & Tsukasa to chat. Though he did spend some of that time setting up his . girlfriend box trap and prepping his Antares speech.

Of course there's also the moment Nene runs off to get dressed, and they try to be patient… they really make the whole walk to the classroom together and wait for her together. So who knows if, while alone, they chatted or at least, exchanged glances.

and the dubiously canon movie date. I have no idea if Amane is lying, or relaying memories from childhood but pretending it's just happened, or if fsr when setting up and testing the world you had to trial run the movie theater to be sure it would suffice to trick Nene and Tsukasa was there because why wouldn't he be. The setting up of Picture Perfect is so ambiguous....

All of this to say .... there are many random spaces of time across the manga, Amane and Tsukasa could have stopped to exchange a few discreet words! Even without focusing on them always being in the school every night or over the weekend without observation (I wouldn't go so far as to say they are having slumber parties, lol, I'm sure their interactions are always rather brief and loaded and centering on some goal)....

after this moment, I started to feel like... ugh, wait =.= I ... officially have NO IDEA 'where you are at' with Tsukasa!!! How you feel about his shenanigans!!!! This is not a face of, resigned defeated sadness, this is a face that reads to me as WEIRDLY WARM AND FOND?? What on earth do these sequences of events and their exchanges feel like to, HANAKO?? Exciting??? mysterious, alluring, captivating, tantalizing?? Salivating for the next run-in??? Interested in what the hell his endgame is??? What he'll suggest to you next??? THIS HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT TSUKASA AFTER YOU FIND HE'D INVITE YOU TO RIP HIM TO SHREDS??

alive together, did Tsukasa ever have much freedom, power? In their situation, could Amane even see a Tsukasa flourishing in any sense, moving as he pleased? Did Tsukasa ever have other friends at all, a social life? What is it like, to see Tsukasa seemingly doing whatever he wants to, now, unrestricted? Is not Amane willfully enabling Tsukasa to continue at every step?? How often do they confer, or, how often does Tsukasa at least let Amane listen in on something, or know what he's up to? Tsukasa wants to 'know' Amane and, ultimately, he loves him no matter what he does... and Hanako also seems interested in 'knowing' Tsukasa, too... observing what he will do. Even if it's dangerous, or causes collateral damage.

Trying to be a little worried after all of this, that the Yugi are possibly persistently flirting with one another more than I had originally thought... worried you sortof want to see your little brother do crazy shit.... worried it's way too mutual....

AN ADD-ON:

I do think Hell of Mirrors is a performance, most likely... I think that is why the interstitial image pictures Nene and Mitsuba as circus clowns performing:

this promotional image for vol7 also features that get-up, and Amane and Tsukasa linking arms

promotional images are easy to shrug off, but they often do reflect the volume's theme, more often than not... here is the promo image for vol 9, Picture Perfect: everyone drawing together

while volume 11 is the volume Hanako traps Nene in PP:

...sometimes images are more incidental, but other times, they are symbolic/referencing what occurs in the volume. Its at least something to think about when theorizing!

#avvy's JSHK #i get to the end of my thoughts and its like.. ew. gross. these damn twins...

20 notes · View notes

kohakhearts · 1 year

Note

🌈 🌿 💌

thank you so much!~

🌈 is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

i think the pieces i've struggled the most to write have been difficult not because of the content of the work itself or anything like that but because of what's been going on in my real life around the time i wrote it. that being said...my memory around those particularly bad times is, well. bad. so it's hard to recall whether or not i struggled with the fics i wound up posting. there are definitely wips that never got completed around those times that i struggled with, though. i think this fic was one of those, but in the end i wound up revisiting and completing it. the beginning was written a year before the rest of it, but i don't know if you'd be able to tell that right away!

🌿 how does creating make you feel?

i mean...short answer is, it's complicated, but overall i would say it makes me feel content? like, yes. sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes it even makes me a bit depressed, but even in my worst moments emotionally writing is something i know i can turn to to kind of put the world on pause around me and just get lost in what i'm doing. that being said...sometimes that's a positive, sometimes it's a negative lol. i have adhd hyperfocussed myself into many problems in my life, and writing is something that i find i can get really focussed on doing once i start haha. and creating in general, honestly. even drawing, when i do it - same effect. but writing was my first artistic love and will always be my best, so!

💌 share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

well, right now pretty much the only thing i'm working on is osf because i need it to be done SO BAD and i am SO BEHIND haha. this book is so much about nerissa's development, her coming of age - everything she has to learn and how she has to reframe her understanding of history in order to see herself within it. here's a little snippet i like that i think embodies some of the themes she has to grapple with on a personal level. tried to pull something not super spoiler-y, but that might have been unavoidable haha.

“It is without meaning. He knows, deep down, the truth—and knows it is not the angels’ forgiveness he needs.”

“Then, whose?”

Erebus’s hand twitched, and loosened. He lay back down with a shuddering breath, eyes closing tight against a sudden pain. A few beats passed, wherein only his disparate exhales punctured the silence, and then he said, “His own.”

Hektor reached down and held Erebus’s hand once more. They did not speak, and at long last, the memory faded, and Nerissa was alone.

and, of course, this is the book where you finally see just how similar she and aether really are...that's been fun to write! for so long he's been a very untouchable figure in the narrative, but in this book she starts to see he was human once, just like she was.

fic writer asks!

#answered #ask games

4 notes · View notes

arthist0rian · 2 years

Text

Canto D'amore

Giorgio DeChirico, oil on canvas, 1914, moma new york

He lived the first part of his life in Athens, where he studied at the polythechnic, then in 1905 he moved with his mother and brother in Munic, where he worked at the Academy. The Art of Bocklim and the philosophy of Nietzche impressed him deeply, as much so to pay homage in his art later in his life.

He started painting allegorical pieces in 1910, after a trip in Florence. His paintings consisted in the symbolic possibilities of dream revealed, where real object are found in unnatural and unusual relationships, within suspended atmospheres. He later met, during a trip in france Apollinaire, Jacob, Picasso. After his military service he was back in italy, in ferrare, where carrà and him started the Metaphisical movement, aimed at creating fantastic suggestions with the combination of disparate objects and specially antient statuetes in spaces built according to the rules of 15 century perspective, but lit by color and in a modern fashion, with amazing associetion not only of senses and ideas but also of history and time.

The painting is enigmatic and it's caraterized by a misterius meaning.

We can observe the background, one of the three italian squares De Chirico usually paintend in his works, with classical style buildings. Nailed, at what can be a theatrical scene, an orange rubber glove, near a huge plaster reproduction of the head of the Apollo del Belvedere. In front of them we see a green sphere, or a soccer ball. A train is seen hid behind a brick wall on the left.

All the objects have huge proportions, and can resembles the colors of the italian flag.

The most eye catching trait of this painting is the evident reminder to classic art, especially because is rapresented by one of the most famouse antient greek statue. There are not humans figures, so in the painting there is not a reference to life and living creatures. The objects are all modeled with the chiaroscuro, and feels almost pasty.

The orange glove is immediately noticeable, because of the contrast with the brown wall, wich is in contrast with the blue sky and street. The head is noticeable because is the only object being white with the exept of the cloud. The locomotive is in backlight and we see just the siluette. The light is from the back right and creates neat and long shadows that pick up a narrative value, creating a climate of solitide and darkness,

All the attention is draw to a still scene, timeless, a stage that does not show any particular emotion or action.

De Chirico engages our logic building a scene that is a real puzzle: what is the relations between the object we are observing? A rubber glove, a Plaster head, a green ball, a loggia and a locomotive? How can all of this be a Love song (the title). The question as no answer, and the ultimate meaning is in fact the unsolvable enigna.

I personally find this painting extremely beautiful, if you ever visited north italy, is exactly like this, still, timeless, it feels like the hours never pass, the city squares often are made by different style of buildings, and if you are from a little town or village in the most hot hours of the day youll find no one in sight. But of course if you are like me and like vaporwave this painting give out the exact same vibe.

#canto d'amore #giorgio de chirico #love song #art academia #dark academia #art #art history #light academia #painting #academia #chaotic academia #classic academia #900s art

1 note · View note

mysticdragon3md3 · 2 years

Text

…

Last week, I saw a Tweet saying something about the hypocrisy of Claude fans who don't condone Edelgard for starting the war in FE3H, calling her a "warmonger", but (I think) being ok with Claude's actions in 3Hopes. And I've been turning that thought over in my head. Are we being hypocritical? What is actually happening, and why?

I can only talk about my personal experience. But I do need to sort it out. Because that Tweet made me question if I am having some sort of dissonance, so I wanted to make sure. Am I being hypocritical for not advocating Edelgard, while loving Claude in FE3H and 3Hopes?

Personally, Edelgard did strike me as a "warmonger". In my view (limited to Verdant Wind, Azure Moon, and some Silver Snow), her decision to solve the problem of "the Church is creating oppressive systems behind the scenes and reinforcing classism" by starting a war, seemed unnecessary TO ME. I didn't understand why she couldn't just solve things non-violently. In fact, we had Claude right there, whose purpose seemed to be to introduce the idea that Edelgard's same goals could be achieved through non-violence and peacetime. My big problem with Edelgard was that it SEEMED like she didn't even try to resolve the conflict peacefully. But I ASSUME that from her perspective and for those on the Crimson Flower route, the story probably did SOMETHING to justify why she thought negotiation with the Church was "impossible", therefore necessitating her declaring war. But also, there are meta reasons: Fire Emblem is a war series, SOMEONE has to start a war, and the developers Intelligent Systems wanted FE3H to be about morally gray characters whose perspectives were all simultaneously right and wrong (as they explained in a Famitsu interview). They weren't afraid to make the "villain" a protagonist in her perspective, as well as for the audience too. And I'm sorry, but in FE3H, Edelgard started the war, so she's going to narratively, functionally, be the "villain" (at least until much later in the other routes, when the simplistically, definitively "evil" Agarthans got introduced). Regardless, Edelgard started the war that put Fodlan into war for 5 years, war is bad, I can't support her. If a "warmonger" is "a person who encourages or advocates aggression towards other countries or groups" (according to Google dictionary), then I'd say starting a war, declaring THE war of the unification of Fodlan, is very much "encouraging/advocating" a war.

I don't know how many people are against war in fiction, in general. I understand it's a fickle taste. I personally have several war anime in my list of top favorite series. Sometimes it's like Code Geass or Sengoku Basara (2009-2011), where war is more of a metaphor of an emotional conflict and can be justified as a narrative device. In other series, war is portrayed with a constant reminder that, in reality, no matter what happens, there is collateral damage to civilians, land, homes, resources for life, and the disregard for human lives turned into soldiers (and sometimes war doesn't even solve the problem it took those costs to try to solve). Like Sengoku Basara (2009-2011), like (I think) some Gundam series, and like Nausicaa. Sometimes war, battle, and even killing can just be exhilarating escapism. Sometimes fictional war can be a discussion to remind everyone that war and violence in real life, are the actions of the fearful and weak (see Vash's refutation vs Knives in Trigun), or simply the lack of patience to go through the hard work of negotiation, solving problems non-violently, and talking with intelligence/imagination and empathy until even disparate people understand and accept/tolerate each other. Let's be realistic: war is always bad. Let's be fancifully escapist: war is a thrilling drama. I really think that whether a FE3H fan is inclined more towards Edelgard or Claude, depends on what type of preference they already brought into FE3H, before it even started.

Personally, I've come to the conclusion that my pre-established ideals regarding war, worked in conjunction with the emotional/atmospheric setup of FE3H, to prepare our feelings about the war of Fodlan's unification. I keep turning over and over again in my head: What makes Code Geass's war different from FE3H? Because I was perfectly fine with Lelouch's warmongering, but I'm a staunch advocate for Claude's avoidance for war. What was going on with me?

I think it's because from the very first scene, from the very first dialogue, the atmosphere and tone of Code Geass set up a dire, severe, and melodramatic world. In a world like that, I could accept war as this "fanciful drama". But most of all, the world Code Geass set up in its first few scenes were crying out for the audience to indulge in the guilty pleasure of "revenge fantasy", uninhibited violence, and simple, unquestioned, self-indulgent self-righteousness. The tone was bleak and gave every justification it could for the audience to feel that this was a space where we would be allowed to indulge in the Machiavellian.

FE3H on the other hand, starts off with a long first half of sunny Academy days. Happy, unserious fun times. Even a lot of the battles were just practice, "mock battles". Nothing serious going on. And in the meantime, there was space for "school hijinks". Sure, the students were sent out on serious missions every month and a dangerous plot was slowing being uncovered throughout the school year. But for the majority of time and tone, the atmosphere was light, happy, and full of carefree school days. As one anime video essayist explained, portraying school years as glossy, idealistic, and the pinnacle of happiness is common in Japanese pop culture, since life after school is too full of work culture grind. I feel like that seeped into FE3H's Garreg Mach's Officers' Academy, despite the looming threats from the Agarthans (and Church). They were happy, peaceful days, so when that peace was shattered by Edelgard's declaration of war, it felt especially hurtful. And to some, especially egregious. This is where I understand where the Edelgard-haters are coming from. I too, bought into it for a while, despite being honestly indifferent to Edelgard---both uncaring whether I liked or disliked her. But Edelgard shattered those sunny school days.

Edelgard's declaration of war was different from the growing intrigue caused by the Agarthans (and Church). Those threats felt like if all the schoolmates just banded together, they could protect this place that they had found comradery in. But when Edelgard declared war, it not only split the students from the inside, but it also forced Garreg Mach to be abandoned and the Academy to shut down.

And for those of us mostly looking on from the Golden Deer, Blue Lions, or Silver Snow perspectives, Edelgard's actions just seemed like warmongering. During her initial attack on Garreg Mach, Claude even specifically has dialogue confronting her with using unnecessarily violent methods, like war, to achieve dreams/goals/ambitions. And throughout FE3H, as it went further on, the contrast between Claude and Edelgard became more poignant, the more we see how many ambitions/dreams they have in common. Even Fire Emblem Heroes takes time to have dialogue and canon scenes where Claude admits to having similar dreams to Edelgard. He specifically compares his dreams to Edelgard's, almost by name, citing "a certain Adrestian Emperor". (https://mysticdragon3md3.tumblr.com/post/651057968087990272/jtavington-on-the-one-hand-my-inner-edelclaude) The primary difference in FE3H being that Claude wanted to achieve those same dreams without war or violence, as much as possible, while Edelgard tried to do it by starting a war. Hell, I would have accepted an assassination, a gradual dissolution and discrediting of the Church's power, or a coup, more than a war. A war always involves civilians, the land (their homes and means of producing food and resources to live), and the lives of many more soldiers needed for open field warfare. Some people think that us Claude fans are all pacifists who believe in solving all problems ONLY through benign, altruistic, righteous means. But I'm here to tell you, I am practical when it comes to the toll of assassination or coups, vs outright warfare. And when there is absolutely no other recourse, and the less violent methods have been tried in earnest, then I can understand going to war. The important thing is that those types of underhanded aggressions, as well as war, are kept as last resorts. The important thing is to FIRST try all the non-violent methods to get people to understand, empathize, and cooperate with each other, as much as possible, to your maximum ability and efforts. When opposing soldiers come for your head during a war, there's no choice but to kill or be killed. So better to avoid a war, when solving problems. The problem we have with Edelgard starting a war, is that most of the routes don't give a sense that she tried other methods to achieve her goals, first/beforehand. I can only ASSUME that her route gave a sense that she had no other choice left but to declare war on the whole rest of the continent. But even then, that's just one route out of 4 (5, if Ashen Wolves can be counted?). Additionally, ALL the routes started with that peaceful school days setup of Garreg Mach Academy, which would automatically counteract any tones trying to make the war feel warranted.

The reason Edelgard comes out looking like a "warmonger", while Claude and Dimitri "are just defending their countries", is because the story gave so much time for us to become attached to this peacetime tone in Garreg Mach, so any character starting a war feels "out of the blue" and "unnecessary". It didn't fit. And when that happens, the audience is left drowning in feelings of "WHY?! WHY DID A WAR HAVE TO START?!???" Granted, the whole premise of FE3H is "the tragedy of former classmates becoming enemies in war time". So the more painful the switch from "happy school days" to "the tragedies of war", was probably intentional. And being intentional, means that Intelligent Systems likely, very specifically wanted to make the Garreg Mach Academy days feel as perfect and "unreasonable to break" as possible, so that the switch to war times would hurt even more. The indirect consequence being that a lot of fans of the non-Edelgard-perspective routes are going to just be sore at her as a "warmonger".

Lots of Edelgard fans get sore at the other routes seeing her as a "warmonger". And I saw them cheering when 3Hopes "justified everything she ever did and proved her right in everything", as if they were waiting desperately for everyone to see how "right" she was. (By the way, I'm not saying she's wrong; I'm saying her methods were wrong. And that's why I side with Claude.) I saw posts like that, soon after 3Hopes released last week. But why not embrace "being bad"? As a Code Geass and Persona 5 fan, there is a lot of enjoyment out of just allowing yourself to be "bad" in fictional fantasies. It's cathartic, it's fun, it's freeing, to not care about being careful about everyone else and all their possible sensitivities. That's why it's also fun to be a fan of Disney villains. When FE3H released, lots of people began comparing Crimson Flower, Edelgard's route, to Code Geass. So why not embrace it??? Sure, the longer a "revenge fantasy" or "self-indulgent enjoying in being 'bad'" goes, the more the narrative (needs to?) tries to justify the anti-hero's devious actions. Yes, it's going to hurt when "no one realizes all the good that protagonist did in the shadows!". But that type of tragedy makes the anti-hero look even more selfless, and thus, righteous and admirable. When Code Geass ended, I didn't need the entire country to recognize Lelouch; he had sins that HE WANTED TO pay for. Nunally recognizing his true intentions behind all his "despicable" (as she called him) actions, was just a little treat, to make the ending tragedy not hurt SO SO bad. But being a tragedy, by being a misunderstood anti-hero is part of why such stories are delicious. Why do you need Edelgard to be the "altruistic good guy"? Don't you guys love her for still trying to do good despite all the blood and filth she had to drag herself through? (At least, that's why I assume comparisons are made with Code Geass. Again, I only know Code Geass and only a little of Crimson Flower.)

So, now comes the dissonance of trying to understand why I love FE3H Claude and still love 3Hopes Claude.

I'm kind of confused right now, because a lot of people in the Claude fandom are freaking out over 3Hopes Claude being more devious than in FE3H. But he always had that potential, and I respected him EVEN MORE for knowing to hold back on being devious until it was actually necessary, and yet still having the capability to be ruthless if that is what it would take to protect the world/hope/people that he dreamed about. Someone once posted that Claude always having the potential for doing devious things, even citing hinted warnings in his canon dialogue from FE3H, proved that all us Claude fans who loved him for being benign, were all just naive and completely misjudged him. Apparently, Claude fans "didn't know who he really was", so they must have been "hero-worshipping an imagined altruistic pacifist from their minds", projected onto Claude von Riegan. But I say, Claude contains multitudes! People complained that his "meme lord" reputation diminished the importance we "should be giving" to his admirable policies/ideals. But he is both! He is both a funny guy and the person who wants to create a world of acceptance, diversity, and no need for war. He's both the guy who spends several canon scenes and Supports convicting people who disagree with him, to understand his perspective, through persuasion, patience, and a growing openness, as well as the guy who is setting up poisons, prepared to cheat, and uses mind game banter on the battlefield. The important factor being that he will TRY to solve problems through negotiation, understanding, and non-violence, and save the violence, death, and war, until it's unavoidable. Realizing now, how much self control Claude held over his capabilities to be more underhanded, makes FE3H Claude even more admirable to me. He is both good/altruistic/benign AND practical enough to be ruthless, but only when it's absolutely necessary. And he will TRY his darndest to make ruthlessness a far necessity. He will sit patiently through negotiations, meet antagonism with good humor, still calmly explain his arguments, and put in the realistic work it takes to make people understand/compromise with each other, rather than solving disagreements with violence. He holds hope in everyone's capability/potential to become their best selves, selves that will accept diversity, because that hope and his defiance against the world trying to prove otherwise to him, is his motivation for surviving. He NEEDS to prove to himself that the world/people can be good to each other, so he keeps believing in it and working towards it. A person like that---a character like that, I can't help but admire. Because regardless of what he or the world/people are capable of in their potential, he still stives for realizing the good version of it all.

And then of course, there's the more simplistic reasons why I still love Claude, despite some bloody mistakes he made in 3Hopes: I already got attached to him through FE3H. Let's face it, a lot of people into 3Hopes are only into 3Hopes because they are already FE3H fans. There are very few people who weren't into FE3H, who are playing 3Hopes, and those people are complaining about all the "tedious" lore in the game. (https://twitter.com/Cancelpocalypse/status/1539784081927393280) This same lore and many other details were things that FE3H fans wished could have been explored in FE3H. 3Hopes is a FANSERVICE game. Well, I am a fan, and I have been serviced. ^-^ I already got attached to Claude through FE3H. And even if he makes different choices in 3Hopes, I still see him as the same Claude I grew to know in FE3H…just making different choices…tragic choices. But that makes it an interesting character study for a character I already like, more than an AU that "proves Claude was bad all along!". Naturally, I'm going to be more lenient on a character's sins, whom I already give more sympathy to as a character. That's pretty much the goal of all narratives, regarding their protagonists: Build a rapport of sympathy between the audience and that character. As I noted earlier, this technique is especially important for anti-heroes who will commit questionable actions or straight up crimes. Claude already got me in FE3H; of course I'm going to forgive him for his sins in 3Hopes.

Also, Claude's "betrayal" of his pact with the Empire in Golden Wildfire, seem to be used purely to make his character arc more obvious. One of the criticisms in FE3H was that "Claude didn't have a character arc/growth". Others refuted this by explaining that Claude's growth was in opening up to trusting others, as evident by his final Verdant Wind cutscene where he makes the speech, "But we have the strength to bridge the walls between us! To reach out our hands in friendship and open our true hearts to one another! That's how we win!". The Claude who started FE3H and indeed for most of 3Hopes couldn't have made such a declaration. In Verdant Wind, he recognized that this was his barrier to overcome, and by the end, he grew past that. But a lot of people didn't notice. So I feel like 3Hopes making Claude "betray" the Empire in Golden Wildfire, so that his next cutscene could be Judith and Shez chewing him out for specifically not trusting his allies, and then the following scene center around Claude reopening the Leicester Roundtable Conferences (but including commoners this time) despite him already being King with full authority, was all leading up to Judith saying in that scene “So you’ve finally decided to rely on your friends a little.” Was that character growth obvious enough for us who missed it before?!? I'll admit: In FE3H, I thought Claude was just one of those already-admirable, with no where else to grow characters, like Date Masamune from Sengoku Basara 2009. And I was fine with that because I love admirable, idealistic characters, who just stand as the ideal to strive for, through harrowing times that make lesser people degenerate into less moral versions of themselves. And characters like WallE who don't grow themselves, but effect the growth of surrounding characters, are enjoyable to me too. I didn't notice Claude's character growth in FE3H, because I didn't actually need it. But there were complaints from other people saying that Claude was a static character. Making his character growth more obvious in 3Hopes, was just another in a long line of 3Hopes addressing a lot of the complaints and feedback that people had after FE3H. But to make Claude's arc more obvious, 3Hopes had to make the events that effected and reflected his character MORE EXTREME. Unfortunately, that means that Claude has to make a critical error that "betrays" a pact, unnecessarily costs people their lives, and puts him dangerously close to abandoning his OWN PERSONAL ideals. But Golden Wildfire used that horrible dissonance to solidify his character growth and make his growth as a stronger person more obvious. So it ultimately reinforced Claude as a good character---a good person who committed a terrible sin, but everyone can get more blood on their hands in 3Hopes! Blood and sin for everyone! (Though I suspect 3Hopes might have portrayed Edelgard as the benign lord, since Claude got that role last time in FE3H, and it would make sense if someone still got it in 3Hopes. But that's just a theory. Again, I haven't gone through Scarlet Blaze.)

Considering all that…It's not hypocritical for me to still be a big Claude fan, even forgiving his 3Hopes sins, while not forgiving FE3H Edelgard for being a "warmonger". I DON'T KNOW EDELGARD. I never got interested enough to see her story, experience the story's narrative techniques to get me to empathize with her, or deeply sympathize with her perspective. Maybe if I went back and went through Crimson Flower or even Scarlet Blaze, theoretically, I could possibly come to like Edelgard. I'm indifferent on her, after all; I could go either way liking/disliking her. But the thing is…I'm not interested in Edelgard. Is she a funny meme lord? Did she give off those jovial, welcoming vibes, and so much warmth? Did she make me second-guess and laugh about her, then ultimately see she was the real-deal good person in the end? No, because I never went through the routes that would enable me to get to know her, the way the Black Eagles fans do. And I'm not interested in getting to know her. I give her the benefit of the doubt by agreeing with her accusations against the Church. Even Claude makes those same claims in his 3Hopes Support conversation with Dimitri. (At least, I think the Church is enforcing a Crest-centered class system. Some Claude fans complaining that 3Hopes destroyed Claude's characterization, are saying that all those accusations against the Church are false. And since I didn't play Crimson Flower, I can't be absolutely sure what to believe. But I have been operating all this time, on the assumption that these accusations against the Church were true.) The beauty of sympathizing with a character, is that you'll forgive them for a lot; that's why it's the goal of a lot of narratives, regarding protagonists.

#SPOILERS #spoilers spoilers spoilers #claudeVRkhalid #fe3hfuukasetsugetsu #confused with myself #processing thoughts #please don't pick a fight over this as i don't have the emotional resiliency to deal with internet fights #character analysis #comparisons #contrasts #3hopes #story analysis

1 note · View note

sanktyastag · 3 years

Note

What you said about Aleksander not telling her what happened and why he left and I'll add to that not telling her how the fold was an accident etc is so blatantly a narrative mistep, there is no way to logically conclude "oh he didn't tell her because" what? it's entirely because her knowing those things would make her side with him or at the least understand his pov or worse make the whole "darkling is evil incarnate" while my kind is being murdered hunted and experimented on from 4 sides(cont)

[(cont) And it makes the fact that the hill these writers chose to die on is the fold which was accidental and then the only thing preventing even more atrocities to grisha used by the only person doing anything at all about it including their heroes who instead choose to support an absolutely corrupt monarchy who's done nothing but use an abuse them in numerous ways and then leave said minority even worse than they found them make even less sense than it already does.]

Oooh now here's a spicy take. I agree with you, anon, I feel like there's quite a bit of dissonance between how the show wants the characters to feel about the events that take place on screen, versus what it wants the audience to feel about those same events. Which wouldn't, necessarily, be a problem, except it never resolves the disparity between those two viewpoints, so we're left feeling disconnected from the goals of the protagonists.

I'm going to write an essay now, so it's going under a cut, lol.

The pitfall of SaB, I think, is that it often feels like the writers are trying to address and flesh out areas that the books themselves aren't really concerned with, whilst simultaneously staying true to the story as it's written on the page. And normally a show fleshing out an underdeveloped book concept would improve the story being told, except for the fact that the books are... almost wholly reliant on those things never being addressed in order for the events to take place the way that they do. The showrunners chose to engage with those dropped characters elements, so we now have conflict between the characters as they're presented to us, and the actual story being told.

Which is funny, because they had two different directions they could have expanded on Aleksander's character, and I feel like the show accidentally expanded on the wrong ones? I mean, I sure like what they had to say, but it doesn't really fit the story that they're trying to tell.

Because here's the thing. The books actually want Aleksander to be a sympathetic and well-intentioned character. The issue is that he's so disenfranchised with life that he's turned to extremism. He's caught up in this idea of saving his people, but "people" have become an abstract concept to him. He's looking at the long game so intently, he's blind to the real people in front of him who are suffering for his actions. And that's an interesting narrative to play with! It's so niche to the circumstances of having a character live through centuries of conflict, and distancing himself from the people he's trying to save as a defense mechanism to the endless trauma he's facing. Unfortunately, the books have no interest in engaging with that belief, so it's presented as an immutable fact of his character, rather than a flaw to be challenged, which renders it... much less interesting to read about.

So the weirdness lies within the show, then, expanding on the sympathetic aspects of Aleksander's character, instead of his flaws. They actually made him more involved with the lives of the Grisha he commands, they gave him more reason to attack Novokribirsk, by establishing Zlatan's army. They removed the layers of calculation and distance his book-self had, and made him very human and emotional, but then they continued to treat him as if he still had those book traits of being manipulative, ruthless, and amoral. Which is... disorienting.

Like, if they wanted to make him sympathetic while simultaneously demonizing his character, all they would have had to do was rearrange some scenes. Make it so that Aleksander's backstory is him explaining the creation of the fold to Alina. Throw the events into doubt by having it be told through an unreliable narrator (Aleksander himself), and bam, now it can be both backstory, and a way to manipulate a girl into feeling sorry for him. Same with the assassination attempt. Have him explain what happened and also have him use it as a way to engender trust with Alina, by instilling it with an us vs them agenda.

And then, just... let them have a full conversation. Instead of having Alina say that he's a monster beyond saving without ever discussing anything with him, give Aleksander a chance to explain, have Alina disagree with his methods, and have him force her to go along with them anyways. Bam. There's the story they wanted to tell, wrapped up in a neat little bow.

Of course, all that that fixes is the contradictions in their own story, not actually the quality of the story itself, imo. That's still a storyline that's only engaging with Aleksander's points at the most shallow, baseline level, which would allow them to tell that bland "radical freedom fighter is correct, but also burns down orphanages, so unfortunately we're going to have to side with the right-leaning centrist alternative" narrative that every corporation-run television show is so fond of these days.

But I mean. At least then I could consistently disagree with the story that's being told, instead of being left staring at my screen, trying to figure out if they want Aleksander to be redeemable or not, lol.

#me getting down on one knee in front of this ask: anon will you... go on rants about the potential this story had with me #if it hadn't been railroaded by a book series that had very little interest in exploring it's own worldbuilding #in favor of being a teen romance moonlighting as a girlboss action/adventure novel?#writing this out has simply reminded me that the best version of s&b is the one that lives in my mind rent free #where radical political overhaul is central to the protagonist's storyline #and the conflict is more than one over the top final battle per book #anti leigh bardugo #anti the showrunners too a bit tbh #but that's simply because i disagree with corporate media <3 #darklina

154 notes · View notes

veliseraptor · 3 years

Note

Okay I'm new to this fandom and I'm a bit confused. Did Xue Yang and Meng Yao know each other? Did Meng Yao free him?👀Do xue yang know he has a parentage that dabbled in demonic cultivation?

congratulations, anon! you have hit the nail on the head of one of my perennial aggravations about cql-canon specific details, which is to say ‘what the hell is the deal supposed to be with meng yao and xue yang in qinghe?’

there is no real indication that they might have known each other except some meaningful side-eyes going on that don’t make a lot of sense in context other than, maybe, pre-flagging the idea that meng yao is ~problematic~ and ~untrustworthy~ I guess? (which, ask me how I feel about the idea that everything jin guangyao does forever is bad and sinister, regardless of timeline, effect, or motivation). but there’s no real, substantive indication (up until the empathy flashback in ep 41, I’ll get there) that they are familiar with each other, or that they actually do any collaborating at that point.

you could definitely headcanon them as knowing each other previously based on the fact that they both grew up in less than ideal circumstances, shall we say, but I don’t think there’s any evidence for it in-text other than aforementioned meaningful side-eyes. in fact, canonically we know where they both grew up locationwise and it wasn’t in the same place. but like, seriously.

(and holy shit this got long, I’ll spare you all with a read more. also: I have broken my usual ‘referring to jin guangyao as jin guangyao always’ rule for the sake of this post given that it is specifically about the era where he is going by meng yao, but it did feel really weird.)

speaking specifically with what we see in text (in episode 10), we see meng yao argue against executing xue yang, but only after wei wuxian has done so first. the next explicit link between them is when meng yao leaves the fight between wen zhuliu and nie mingjue saying that he’s going to go check on xue yang; following that, we’re told that xue yang has escaped and meng yao claims he saw the captain free him.

which is, considering the fact that he’s killing the captain at the time, a highly suspect statement to make.

there’s no reason for meng yao to be working with xue yang at this point! there’s just not! it doesn’t make sense for him even from a purely self-interested standpoint and, again, at this point in canon there’s no actual reason to believe that they have any prior familiarity.

(’but lise what about the flashback-’ yes I’ll get there.)

if you want my personal reading, which I think is compatible with the text as we see it, it goes like this:

1. xue yang quickly notices meng yao as a potentially interesting person. I don’t think it’s about seeing him as an ally or knowing him from anything beforehand - I think it’s about seeing him as interesting and kind of funny.

2. meng yao registers that there’s a distinct possibility of nie mingjue dying and/or the wen sect attacking the nie in force and decides to short-circuit that by just freeing xue yang himself, because he knows nie mingjue won’t do it but if xue yang’s gone then that (at least temporarily) solves their wen problem.

my evidence for this is based around the timing of when meng yao leaves to “check on” xue yang (mid-fight, specifically after wen zhuliu, inarguably a greater threat, takes over from wen chao), the fact that he looks definitely concerned when he does so, and the fact that, given where he is at this point, letting xue yang out otherwise makes no sense.

this does not strike me as the face of a person who is a-plottin some sinister business, and this isn’t a face he’s making at anyone, either; this is pure ‘ah fuck this ain’t good’ expression.

(yes, yes, I know, episode 41 flashback, I told you that we’d get there.)

3. meng yao frees xue yang, probably hoping he can make it as bloodless as possible; xue yang, in xue yang fashion, makes it as bloody as possible; meng yao sees his chance to do something about the guy he has always hated and who has repeatedly undermined him, and who probably also caught him in the middle of an incriminating action that nie mingjue would absolutely not accept as justifiable.

4. xue yang bounces, leaving jin guangyao caught holding the sword and surrounded by several dead bodies.

and then they don’t see each other again until xue yang ends up at jinlintai at some unspecified point down the timeline.

regarding the episode 41 flashback (see? I promised!), the view we get of meng yao talking with an unspecified person heavily implied to be xue yang doesn’t make sense in some very critical ways that also align with the selective editing that nie mingjue’s memories seem to have done on incidents we previously saw from a (presumably) omniscient perspective. many people other than me (see here, here, and here for some examples) have written eloquently about the disparities between the scenes as we see them in earlier episodes compared to what we see in the flashback, and how that suggests at least some unreliability of nie mingjue’s memories despite their presentation, since they are visually coeval with the rest of canon, as equally reliable.

(what would be different if the empathy flashbacks were in some way visually demarcated, I wonder? it’s a thought. I like that they’re not because unreliability of narrative/narrator is such a theme, but.)

ANYWAY, regarding the section where we see that conversation between the captain and meng yao, now with bonus mysterious feet (implied to be xue yang) - a few things stand out to me.

one: nie mingjue has no way of having seen this - no personal access to what he’s supposedly seeing in his own memory. this suggests the possibility, at least, that this is a fabricated assumption of a memory. (”I believe this happened, and this is how I would reconstruct it happening.”)

two: possibly more significantly: the scene as played here doesn’t fit with canon as we see it in episode 10 itself. the scene with the captain and meng yao, as we see it earlier, includes here several additional lines of dialogue. considering the other discrepancies within the empathy flashback with previously seen canon, episode ten’s version, by virtue of not taking place within a (flashback of a) flashback and within the pov of an extremely biased character, could be read as more reliable.

see also: the flashback with the captain seeing meng yao talking to someone (implied to be xue yang) is placed directly after nie mingjue accuses meng yao of plotting with xue yang - an accusation he doesn’t make in the scene as it originally plays in episode 10. this is another place where there are several lines of dialogue that weren’t present in the earlier version of the scene, inserted apparently seamlessly into the record.

taken together, with the above where it does not make sense to me that meng yao was ~plotting~ with xue yang prior to freeing him as a way of getting the wens off nie mingjue’s back, I’m inclined to think that moment in the episode 41 flashback is a nie mingjue-generated presumption of what must have happened, rather than a factual account of what did.

meng yao’s choices in episode 10 make much more sense - as someone who, if nothing else, is definitely interested in preserving his position as part of the nie sect, but who also values nie mingjue’s life at that point enough to take a sword to the chest for him - if you don’t take that at face value.

regarding the second part of your question about the xue yang/xue chonghai connection - cql seems to indicate that he has some awareness maybe, based on his conversation with wei wuxian in episode 37? at least, he has access to Lore involving the yin iron that others were unaware of

and had one piece in his possession apparently pre-canon.

but honestly that’s a bit of cql canon that I pretty much ignore completely and sometimes forget about, though there are certainly interesting things that can be done with it.

#anonymous #conversating #lise does meta #the sad queer cultivators show #xue yang #jin guangyao #sorry this took so long anon but perhaps seeing the above you can understand why

164 notes · View notes

theseerasures · 3 years

Text

why is it so hard to defect from Atlas?

Barbara Dunkelmann said during Comic-Con at Home last year that this season’s theme would be “distrust,” but i’m wondering now if the more appropriate word is “discontent.” since Divide, we’ve had arguments big and small, teams splitting up and recombining, and of course, :( and :/ galore at all the war, all the crimes, all the war crimes, and all the general bad decisions (not to be confused with James Ironwood, General Bad Decisions). we’ve now had our first major defections of the season with Hazel and Emerald, which is...interesting to me; they’re both long-runners, certainly, but part of the reason they’re long-running is because their arcs have ALWAYS been on a slow boil. for the defection to happen around the mid-season mark, a lot of things (particularly for Hazel) had to happen very quickly, particularly since they both skipped out the previous season altogether. this is made all the more interesting by the fact that the Atlesian supporting cast who filled the time in season 7 are similarly discontented, but...well, a generous reading of it would be that they’re still “figuring things out,” but we’ve also been watching them “figure things out” for two seasons now, Winter and Marrow especially. why did Hazel and Emerald defect first when they work for the main villain, when Winter and the AceOps--who have taken up more screen time cumulatively during the Atlas arc--are still hemming and hawing to various degrees?

long discussion under the cut--but the tl;dr is: it’s because they live in a (narratively constructed) society

i’m actually gonna start with the discontent that DIDN’T result in defection, which is obviously the Yang-Ruby split. we’ve known that members of Team Protagonist--most notably Yang and Ren--have had doubts for a while now, and sure enough, when push comes to shove they pick a path separate from their implicit leader. as protagonists Yang and Ren are frequently our POV characters, so we’re predisposed to sympathize with them as they doubt Ruby’s agenda, root for them as they bring it up to Ruby in conversation, and...watch as they...regretfully but cordially agree to disagree...

wait, what?

that’s the thing about Team Protagonist, especially at this point in the narrative: everyone feels safe and secure enough in themselves and in each other to communicate openly, even when they disagree. every time Yang felt uncomfortable she talked to somebody about it, and even Ren--Mr. Weaponizing Repression himself--was able to express how he felt. even if it took some prodding from Nora/Yang, even if the direction of his emotions ended up misfiring and hurting his friends--they’re his friends. his family, even. Team Protagonist is able to act and stay together so effectively because they make open communication a priority: they follow Ruby’s lead, but they also trust that Ruby will LISTEN to them, even if she doesn’t always agree.

(the reason they had this disagreement at all is because of the time they couldn’t talk things through, and just had to uncritically back Ruby’s play--when they first entered Atlas. funny, that.)

Team Salem obviously doesn’t work the same way, and this season has made it particularly explicit just how much everyone lives in a state of constant fear and surveillance. what makes solidarity and eventual rebellion possible (though terrifying), though, are two things: first, Salem--being an upstart herself--actually encourages a level of individual initiative in her followers (well. encouraged; i have a feeling with the Hound being a success and Hazel and Emerald’s defection she’s about to change her tune). she’s a master manipulator, and uses people’s individual wants to sway them to her side; but she’s also not a mind-reader, which is kind of biting her in the ass right now.

second, Salem herself is so many LEAGUES beyond everyone else on her “team” that (unless you’re actively trying to be a tit) there...isn’t actually much of a hierarchy beyond “Salem’s in charge.” Watts and Cinder--both Atlesian to varying degrees, mind--are the two who try the hardest to carve out some authority of their own, but even Watts is at least convivial with everyone (except Cinder). to be on Team Salem you have to accept that this is her world and you just live in it, and that ends up equalizing people from very disparate backgrounds with very disparate personalities and skillsets. no one, not even Tyrian, is under the delusion that Salem cares about them, or will listen to their counsel. so when it comes to the least of her followers--Emerald, who (joke copyright @professorspork) is basically Salem’s grandpet, this gerbil who follows her around now for some reason and occasionally makes weird noises (”you mean crying?” Emerald asks, crying)--it’s actually quite easy for her to escape Salem’s notice until it’s too late, while firming up the solidarities that she has (Hazel and Mercury--not Cinder).

to defect, Emerald and Hazel need a degree of narrative interiority, some sense of security with each other (even if it’s just subconscious), and time. time to work things out from their point of view, pull the wool from their eyes. this season’s narrative has given them all that and more.

our Atlesian potential defectors...haven’t been so lucky, and the most recent episode has made that contrast very explicit.

i’m sure i’m not the only one who assumed, when Ironwood first floated the bomb plan, that we’d be getting some kind of Mission Impossible sneaky stealth shit. we’re used to seeing the AceOps do small squad missions, after all, and the timing felt right thematically too, since we left War with Ren literally expositing to all of them that they do, in fact, have feelings. an extended mission to themselves would give them a chance to air out those feelings away from Atlas’ own system of surveillance, figure out what to do together...

but we didn’t get any of that. instead, we got the whoosh laser kapow version of a Sassoon poem, and the AceOps barely talked to each other at all. the only points of view we got were from Marrow, and Winter.

this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to them this season, either--remember the Penny Retrieval mission that wasn’t? there were also hopes that Marrow and/or Winter would turn at that point, but then Salem invaded. Winter and the AceOps have had the potential to defect for a while now, but the narrative has been actively withholding opportunities for them to actualize on any of that potential. it’s been actively withholding opportunities for them to act as a team, period.

it’s possible to handwave this as writerly convenience--everyone can’t defect at the same time, the episodes don’t have room for it--but the ways that defections have been prioritized so that the Atlesians come after also points to a recurring motif with Atlas, which Elm says explicitly in Witch: you can deal with your issues later.

there’s always some kind of delayed promise at Atlas, isn’t there? the Amity project will help. Mantle’s Wall will get fixed (until it wasn’t). when Penny confronts Winter about leaving Mantle to die, Winter says first that they don’t have time, and it seems like they never actually do, except for in this imagined later, when they’ll reckon with every thing that they’ve done.

it doesn’t exist, of course. fascism is only able to remain effective through the engineering of crisis, and Salem might as well be a crisis perpetual motion generator. you can’t conscientiously object if your conscience is constantly stifled by the next emergency.

what the Atlesian scenes in Witch demonstrate is this: Atlas presses down all around them, at all times. even if the AceOps want to stop policing each other and work as a real team, they can’t right now, because they are now officers in a war, because they’re constantly looked to, because they’re part of an infinitely greater machine that demands their service. and right now lasts forever--you will NEVER have time to talk out your discontent...

and even if you steal time and perspective like Marrow does (like Emerald has been doing, thief that she is) with Winter, there is no guarantee of any solidarity. what makes their conversation so simultaneously fascinating and frustrating is that there is clearly some level of rapport, or at least recognition. Marrow goes to Winter because Winter’s in charge, but Marrow also goes to Winter because Winter might hear him out...and she does. Winter does what Winter has consistently done when a person seeks her out and earnestly asks to be heard, and responds compassionately. but at the same time, Winter does what Winter has consistently done when a person seeks her out and earnestly asks to be heard: she turns away. in a conversation that is supposed to be about a shared trust between the two of them, Winter cannot bring herself to trust Marrow. the Atlesian system is built out of these hierarchies within hierarchies, distrusts within distrusts (well i guess Barbara had a point after all), and Winter, abused kid that she is, has played this game all her life. so she defaults to rank and duty--what they have to do now--and the conversation goes nowhere. Marrow leaves it as alone and bitterly resigned as when he’d entered it.

so when is this moral inertia gonna go somewhere? IS it going somewhere? well, i’m still holding out hope that the AceOps will get some time to themselves as part of Bomb the Whale, and i’m certain that even if it doesn’t fall into their lap Marrow will eventually demand it. the fact that they still work well together on the field as partners should mean something. the question is, though: what will it take to bring that later to the present?

and at what point does it become too late?

#rwby #'too late' doesn't necessarily mean 'death' btw #helen writes meta

223 notes · View notes

shihalyfie · 3 years

Text

The difference between Taichi and Daisuke

Because Taichi and Daisuke both fit a rough model of “the brash shounen protagonist”, and because Daisuke, as Taichi’s junior, is intended to invoke him in certain ways, it’s easy to pin Daisuke as just being a slightly derivative version of Taichi in a different context. In actuality, as much as there are similarities between the two, there are other ways in which they’re actually polar opposites!

Although 02 is a sequel to Adventure, 02 is a very different kind of story, one that prioritizes being about relationships instead of Adventure’s simple self-actualization. This means that the characters that are at the center of the narrative are very different because the way each of them grow has very much to do with the story each wanted to tell -- and what each wanted to portray in their respective groups.

The most important thing to understand about both Taichi and Daisuke is that their surface demeanors are extremely misleading.

I discussed in my earlier meta about Taichi that, in fact, a lot of Taichi’s behavior comes from the fact he’s too chill about things -- he’s very easygoing and initially doesn’t seem very argumentative. That emphasis is on initially, because, nevertheless, Taichi has a tendency to try and take charge and push the group to do ambitious things, and when confronted about his ideas maybe not being so great, he starts arguing about it. Adventure episode 7 has him say something pretty condescending to Yamato in the course of it, and it’s only the first in what’s going to be a lot of these incidents. If you want to confront Taichi, he will fight you back.

While it leads to a certain degree of conflict (especially with Yamato) in the earlier parts of the series, it also means that, from the very get-go, Taichi is someone who has no problem making decisions on the fly and getting everyone to go forward with him. It’s also especially important in light of the Adventure group having been a bunch of kids from separate circles tossed together thanks to the circumstances; his ability to make quick and firm decisions helps them come together when they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do things cohesively.

On the other hand, Daisuke, despite having an abrasive surface demeanor, is extremely deferential, and, well, kind of spends the early parts of 02 rather lacking in a spine (I say this with affection, I promise). Unlike Taichi, who often sometimes tried to push forward with whatever he wanted to do even if it was a bit on the dangerous side, Daisuke is so deferential to other people that, during these early episodes, he actually gets carried around by other people more than he can be said to pull others forward. It really doesn’t take much for everyone to override his opinions as long as they’re assertive enough.

Certainly, part of it is because Daisuke’s dealing with his seniors -- Daisuke is an extremely deferential person who’s craving validation, and so he looks up to his seniors and is constantly deferring to their judgment. But even the nine-year-old Iori is capable of getting Daisuke to shut down, just because Iori’s a very assertive person, and Daisuke shrinks so easily. Daisuke’s early-series tendency to lash out at others is largely very defensive, mainly because he’s lacking in validation and plays very poorly with how easily he feels threatened or how much he can’t tell whether he’s being made fun of. (Rather like an overly on-edge puppy, basically.)

But in any case, the important part is that as far as important decisions go, for this part of the series, Daisuke is not the one making them.

Still, what Taichi does have as a leader, he’s somewhat lacking in a certain other area: emotional sensitivity. A lot of his friction with others in the early parts of Adventure involves him stepping on someone’s toes (such as accidentally insulting someone with a well-intentioned but insensitive joke, or being callous with Koushirou’s computer), and when he’s confronted about it (usually by Yamato), actually gets defensive and starts fighting back about it, which leads to things like escalated conflicts with Taichi and Yamato violently punching each other out.

Even by the time of Our War Game!, Taichi is indicated to still have somewhat of a problem accepting responsibility for when he’s offended someone else or doing something wrong, and it’s pretty clearly a big reason he and Sora are still in a very bad fight during the events of the movie. Most of the time (at least during Adventure and Our War Game!), by the time Taichi’s realized he’s messed up, he’s already deep in hot water.

In comparison, initially brash as Daisuke can be, when things really come down to it, even the early episodes indicate that not only is he much more non-confrontational, he’s actually significantly more emotionally sensitive. In 02 episode 7 (one that’s still pretty high up in his phase of being rather too shallow when it comes to issues about Hikari), he does what even Our War Game! had indicated Taichi at being really bad at doing: immediately apologizes to Iori on the spot and takes back his statements that went over the line with Takeru. Even this early part of the series still has clear indications he’s more attuned to considering his friends’ feelings without being prompted to do so (in 02 episode 10, he immediately catches on that Miyako’s not feeling well, with nobody else having to point it out).

On top of that, as much as he has an occasional tendency to lash out angrily at people, unlike Taichi, Daisuke almost never resorts to ad hominem (insulting the other person directly); abrasive and argumentative as he may sometimes be, he isn’t the type to call people names or be condescending. This is a really important distinction that’s often overlooked (not only with fictional characters, but also often in real life in general); it’s the difference between “you’re stupid” (ad hominem) and “what you’re doing is stupid”. Daisuke very often does the latter because he’s defensive and quick to criticize, but it’s vanishingly rare he will ever go as far as to try invalidating a person, nor does he ever really look down on anyone; it’s an important key to understanding how he’s actually the type to support and respect others even despite his tendency to get argumentative.

Daisuke having the Digimentals of Courage and Friendship points him towards Taichi and Yamato, and it’s important to not neglect that latter part -- as much as Daisuke’s surface traits and character design beg you to think more of Taichi, Daisuke’s tendency to be more emotionally sensitive and constantly consider the feelings of his friends is much like Yamato’s, especially since Yamato also had a tendency to have a somewhat abrasive exterior but actually be emotionally passionate about those he cared about. As a result, Daisuke never, ever gets in a fight with anyone to remotely the same violent and anger-filled degree Taichi and Yamato would get in back in Adventure, because even when he gets kind of close in 02 episode 11, he ultimately ends up sidetracked by thinking seriously about what his seniors have to say about friendship and trying to figure out what Takeru’s feelings are that it defuses very quickly. In the end, Daisuke’s just too conscientious about other people’s feelings to let it get that far.

The first time Taichi is properly recognized as the Adventure group’s “leader” is in Adventure episode 28, and the word is used directly. Taichi even initially denies it, before everyone brings proof in the form of pointing out that he was the one capable of bringing them all together when they’d split apart, and Taichi later demonstrates his abilities as a leader himself when he properly delegates Koushirou as the one to solve the card puzzle. Everyone states that they trust him as the leader, and defer to his judgment in this situation; for the rest of the series, the group continues to acknowledge him as someone who eventually calls the shots and makes the major decisions over what the group will do next.

No equivalent to this scene exists in 02. In fact, Daisuke is not the leader of the 02 group in the same way Taichi is the leader of the Adventure group, and, to push it further, I would even go as far as saying that the 02 group does not have a leader at all.

Understanding why the 02 group doesn’t have a leader, or, more accurately, doesn’t really need one, has to do with the fact that the 02 group has a very different relationship with each other than the Adventure group does. Taichi was responsible for holding the entire Adventure group together and organizing them because they were liable to fall apart without someone as the lynchpin, but the 02 group started off as a social circle before they were a fighting group, and therefore will stick together as friends even if nobody’s holding them together per se. This leads to 02 episode 19 featuring them deciding to work independently to the point Daisuke gets left behind -- compare the equivalent episode in Adventure and how Taichi is treated, and it’s pretty clear Daisuke doesn’t actually have a very commanding role in the group. (You can think of it as an inverted version of the Adventure group’s relationship with socialization vs. fighting coordination; the Adventure group figured out how to fight together fairly quickly but fell apart as soon as Taichi was gone, whereas the 02 group is predisposed to hang out together as friends but takes much longer to learn to coordinate from a fighting perspective.)

Even after Daisuke starts to become more assertive, however, he still doesn’t always take an active role in terms of coordinating or calling the shots -- the most prominent example being the Giga House incident in 02 episodes 28-29, in which he doesn’t mind deferring to the others as they all strategize. It’s a huge contrast against the Adventure group (which was rather big and in need of someone to organize such disparate people) deferring to Taichi to make the final calls and to lay down the goals for them to follow, whereas Daisuke can make decisions or suggestions, but is much more liable to defer to his friends’ ideas or what they want to do if they happen to have any better suggestions. Daisuke doesn’t have the bird’s-eye tactician abilities Taichi has nor his natural charisma, but he shows all signs of being well aware of this; when the 02 group makes a major decision, it’s always one they make together, and although Daisuke eventually does gain a certain sense of independent will, he still puts extremely high value into what his friends think about the situation before going forward with it. As much as Daisuke was certainly the most influential in getting the group to reach out to Ken, it's ultimately the rest of the group that chooses to find their own way to reach out to him, each on their own terms -- Miyako in 02 episode 25, Hikari in 02 episode 32, Takeru in 02 episode 37, and Iori in 02 episode 38 -- and while Daisuke did originally have a clear intention to reach out to Ken regardless of what the others thought, he still very much did actively bid and hope for the others to get along with him in their own ways (see: 02 episode 30).

(This also has the side effect that, as much as Daisuke’s surface demeanor might suggest that everything would be a reckless disaster with him around, the fact that he takes his friends’ stances on the situation so heavily in regard means that he’s actually less likely to do something catastrophically stupid in a major situation, as long as his friends are sufficiently able to keep him in check.)

In the course of Adventure, the skill that Taichi begins to hone is “becoming a leader” in every sense of it -- organizing others, bringing them together, and learning to be ever so slightly less impulsive by thinking through his decisions a bit more instead of leaning on the first thing that comes to his head. The Adventure group, twice on the verge of falling apart, is ultimately brought back together under his lead, and it’s his charisma that allows all of them to trust him and what he wants to do.

It’s not hard to see why; he has qualities for it that come to him naturally, in that he treats people equally and without prejudice, and is a soccer captain-like tactician who is capable of taking a bird’s eye view of the situation and organizing things around them. As demonstrated in Adventure episodes 16 and 28, he’s good at delegating roles when people need suitable guidance.

Daisuke, on the other hand, has a very different specialty: emotional positivity and support. Once he starts shedding the defensive abrasiveness he’d had a tendency to fall into during the first half of the series, his true capacity for being a very pure-hearted, emotionally sensitive person who puts the well-being of his friends first and foremost before anything else comes through. This means he’s the member of the group who’s the most brimming with “positivity” and “the will to push forward”, especially over the course of the second half of 02 in which things are taking a larger and larger psychological toll on the group. Again, the 02 group doesn’t actually have a true “leader”, and many of those traits Taichi has that Daisuke lacks ultimately have to be substituted by some of the other members in the group, but Daisuke’s main skill is in “leading the charge” with emotional support -- and that’s why he ends up often being the one most proactively pulling them forward (and, on a meta level, is why he’s the main protagonist even if the story is arguably more about Ken).

Of course, Taichi and Daisuke do end up having traces of the others’ strengths -- Taichi ultimately comes around to being more emotionally sensitive and handling others maturely (especially in 02), while Daisuke receiving a proper support group and validation from his friends allows himself to show the assertiveness he’d struggled to show in the first half. But ultimately, their strengths are their own, and tailored very well to the dynamics of the particular groups they’re affiliated with.

Once eight years have passed since 02, we can now see this disparity in personality to the point it’s started having major differences in their future paths. Taichi’s in the middle of an existential crisis, drifting away from a lot of his friends and not sure what to do with his life, whereas not only is Daisuke cheerfully hanging out with his friends like 02 was only yesterday, he’s very clearly aware of what he wants to do with his life (after all, he’s had that very clear goal since he was in elementary school).

In regards to why Daisuke’s not having nearly as many problems with his career path: it’s because Daisuke’s satisfied with the low hanging fruit.

Daisuke has always admired Taichi ever since they were both tiny kids, and it’s easy to see why, given Daisuke’s deficiencies prior to the start of 02 -- being a natural leader, charismatic, and extremely assertive, Taichi very easily presented an ideal image of an idol for Daisuke to aspire to. Kizuna makes it clear that Daisuke is just as senior-adoring and Taichi-adoring as he was back in 02; he has a lot of faith in his seniors to be able to pull amazing and great things off.

Daisuke himself, meanwhile, is happy with only the idea of running a ramen shop, and is practically playing the whole thing by ear without thinking of it too hard. While Taichi hasn’t really said anything about the matter, it’s pretty easy to believe that there is no way in hell Taichi would be satisfied with something like that as a career; he’s always been the ambitious type who wants to do big things, and the fact he’s taking political science and economics at a major university (if it’s anything like the real uni, it’s not easy to get into!) indicates that, even if he doesn’t know exactly what, he certainly would rather do something bigger and more influential with his life.

But the drama CD provides a lot of insight into Daisuke’s current attitude regarding the whole ramen shop thing, and he’s rather grounded about it all, admitting that he doesn’t entirely know what he’s doing and being very quick to admit his own faults. I mentioned earlier that Daisuke is actually good at taking responsibility for his own failings, and it’s likely his lack of ambition stems from the fact that he simply doesn’t consider himself cut out for huge, amazing things to begin with. But that doesn’t matter to him, because he’s happy with simple things, and, more importantly, he’s happy as long as he can continue to support his friends -- and receive support from them in return. Said drama CD includes him relating a long narrative about how, after initially being unsure of what to do, he took all of the little pieces of information and suggestions he got from his friends extremely seriously, even when they didn’t think much of what they were doing or saying at the time -- in short, Daisuke’s life really does involve appreciating and loving his friends.

This is important to consider in light of the fact that the 02 group is cut out for a very different future from their seniors’ -- again, look at the difference between Taichi’s eventual future of “history-making diplomat” and Daisuke’s of “ramen shop owner”. Even when you take into account the whole success story of his shop becoming a chain (which, knowing him, may well have been by accident), as far as world-shattering impact goes, the most influence Daisuke is ever going to have with that career is in regards to food. But this ties into the fact that Daisuke really is that kind of person, someone who’s more community-oriented and sensitive about bringing happiness to the people around him more than he’s capable of aiming for the abstract, whereas Taichi is the kind of person who is much more ambitious and able to enact larger impact over more usually disparate groups of people, even if it means not necessarily having the same type of support group Daisuke has.

And, on a larger scale, it ties into the reason why 02 group is so easily tied at the hip despite their seniors so clearly drifting apart -- it’s baked into the difference between their dynamic and their seniors’ dynamic. The Adventure group is comprised of the kind of people who shoot for individual achievement and self-affirmation over all else, but the 02 group is somewhat dependent on each other for support. As I’ve said before in the relevant meta, this isn’t fundamentally a bad thing -- it ties more into how they choose to live and what they want to prioritize, and as far as the 02 group goes, Daisuke’s priority of mutually supporting his friends ties into the overall group’s priority of valuing their relationships to each other over necessarily shooting for high individual achievement, and finding their own happiness that way.

It’s also interesting to think about why Taichi has his goggles back by the beginning of the movie, meaning that, at some point, Daisuke gave them back to him and started wearing the orange sunglasses we see him with for its duration. Of course, Taichi having the goggles is for meta reasons, since there’s a lot of symbolism associated with Adventure itself and Taichi’s past association with it, as well as its own connection to his past...

But it’s also interesting to consider the fact that even as early as 2003, Daisuke was considering passing the goggles on to someone else. (They’ll eventually end up owned by his own son, but you can imagine the trail of who passed it to whom at what time for yourself.) The same drama CD track implies heavily that Daisuke initially wore his own pair of goggles specifically for the sake of emulating Taichi as “the person who had the power to protect everyone”. Taichi passing his own pair onto him was proof that Daisuke was now worthy of accepting that power and becoming capable of his own courage.

Yet by 2003, Daisuke already considered himself confident enough in said abilities to be willing to pass them onto someone else. You can imagine the circumstances of why he decided to give them back to Taichi for the time being (perhaps he noticed Taichi slipping into an existential crisis?), but the point is that while the goggles still have symbolic meaning, Daisuke’s capable of carving his own path and figuring out what he wants to do without needing to use the exact same thing Taichi did. Instead of chasing after someone else for it, he managed to find his own strengths within himself, and thus, ends up finding happiness in a very different way than Taichi does.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #yagami taichi #motomiya daisuke #taichi yagami #daisuke motomiya #shihameta

169 notes · View notes

bloodraven55 · 3 years

Note

It isn't the slow burn. She Ra had a slow burn and people did not call it a baiting show. It is the fact that Queerness is treated different by the show. There is 1 queer relationship (Jaune's sisters) every single other confirmed relationship is het. There are jokes about Jaune wearing a dress because men in dresses are silly. There is no queer culture, queer language, queer history. No queer reference. Blake and Yang dance in a room of male-female couples.

Y'know I wasn't gonna bother with this since I got several other suspiciously similar asks at the exact same time so I can tell it's not in good faith, but let's break this one apart piece by piece anyway.

“It isn't the slow burn. She Ra had a slow burn and people did not call it a baiting show.”

Yes, people absolutely did claim that She Ra was queerbaiting during its run. Obviously practically all of those people have since changed their opinion given how the show ended, but it's objectively untrue to say that She Ra was never accused of baiting. There was literally a huge incident where an article was published spreading fake information to try and ““prove”” that the show was manipulating its LGBT+ audience. Not to mention that She Ra aired within the span of only two years while RWBY is spanning around eight years and counting, making the two completely incomparable at the moment. So you've begun with a lie and a false equivalence; great start so far.

“There is 1 queer relationship (Jaune's sisters) every single other confirmed relationship is het.”

This could be an almost valid point, if it weren't for the fact that judging LGBT+ rep solely by the presence of same-sex relationships is hugely disingenuous and misleading, and moreover pointless given how many real life LGBT+ people that logic would exclude if it was applied e.g. straight trans people and single queer people. RWBY's canon has nine confirmed LGBT+ characters, including two title protagonists. And as for relationships, there are currently only two ongoing romances getting any screentime, which are B/umbleby and R/enora. One of them is wlw, one of them is straight, and they've been treated exactly the same throughout the show.

“There are jokes about Jaune wearing a dress because men in dresses are silly.”

If there had been a single moment or ““joke”” like this in the show since Volume 2 then this would make a very strong argument, but all of the questionable attempts at humour from the early seasons have completely disappeared by this point. It's literally impossible to deny that they've improved markedly in this department over the years and failing to acknowledge that is simply uncharitable. It's perfectly possible to have a problem with a scene from Volume 2 without ignoring the progress that's been made since then.

“There's no queer culture, queer language, queer history. No queer reference.”

I'm LGBT+ myself and I have a whole bunch of WIPs I'm currently brainstorming or working on. Let me tell you something: not many of them have loads of explicit references to queer culture, language, history, etc. Not because those things shouldn't be included in stories—they absolutely should—but because they aren't the single defining marker or always a necessary part of good LGBT+ representation. For example, when it comes to literature a lot of LGBT+ novels are contemporaries, and personally I don't tend to enjoy that genre as much with some exceptions of course. Therefore, I usually read and write fantasy stories which just so happen to feature lots of LGBT+ characters again obviously with some exceptions, because that's my individual preference.

Different LGBT+ people will want different things from their rep, which is precisely why we need not just more rep but more varied rep as well, and there's no one set of criteria that can determine if a piece of rep is good or not. Also, not every story with LGBT+ rep needs to focus primarily on LGBT+ issues! Narratives which revolve around LGBT+ identities and narratives which simply happen to include LGBT+ identities are equally valid, and ideally there should be plenty of both.

“Blake and Yang dance in a room of male-female couples.”

Where?? Where are all these prominent straight couples in the show that you keep bringing up??? A/rkos died with Pyrrha at the end of Volume 3, and Ren and Nora are the only other heterosexual pairing among the main cast. All of the others are either long finished and never to return—e.g. Jaune/Weiss and Neptune/Weiss—or featured so briefly they hardly count—e.g. Ghira/Kali, Salem/Ozma—and none of those pairings ever even kissed on screen. Pyrrha kissed Jaune once and then died. Ren and Nora finally got to kiss seven seasons into the show and three whole Volumes after their Romantic Airship Moment™, and are still having relationship difficulties now. I'm simply not seeing any significant disparity in the way the show treats its straight couples as opposed to its gay ones.

No one's telling you that you have to be a fan of the show's LGBT+ rep yourself, or that you have to have any specific opinion on it, but I don't think that actively misrepresenting the facts or basing your stance on your personal biases is going to help us get better rep at all.

#rwby #raven.ask #raven.salt

168 notes · View notes

army-of-mai-lovers · 3 years

Text

tbh I think watching lok b1 fucked up my brain permanently because it’s been months since I finished the show and yet every night before I go to sleep I start thinking about these very plot-relevant questions like “are nonbenders in Republic City systemically oppressed? how so? were they able to vote in local elections? it seems like they weren’t able to because there are no nonbenders on the Council. but wait, Sokka was on the Council, and he was a nonbender. so between Sokka’s death and the start of lok, did nonbenders lose their right to vote? or did they always not have the right to vote, but benders just voted for Sokka in the Council elections because they liked him? why would a nonbender not be allowed to vote but then be able to run for office? was Sokka given special treatment because he was friends with the Avatar and the Firelord? did Sokka further the systemic oppression of nonbenders? but why would he do that? how would he do that? what did systemic oppression of nonbenders look like prior to the start of lok? clearly, Tarrlok rounding up nonbenders was supposed to parallel instances of authoritarians scapegoating racial and ethnic minorities in the real world, but there had to have been some kind of buildup to that, probably in the form of legal and social disenfranchisement of nonbenders by the government. but we, the audience, never actually see the effects of that disenfranchisement. Both Asami’s mom and Mako and Bolin’s parents are killed by benders (specifically Firebenders) and there’s that scene in the beginning where the Triple Threats are antagonizing local businesses, but do any of these actually indicate systemic oppression of nonbenders? those are definitely evidence of certain individuals using their power to hurt other individuals, but you can’t really chalk that up to a coherent system of discrimination, especially since none of those people were connected to a government body. and yeah we see the government antagonize nonbenders in lok b1, but it’s after Amon’s already risen to power, and so one would assume that the government has already antagonized nonbenders enough that they’re willing to follow essentially a cult leader because of their dissatisfaction with their station in life, allowing tensions to grow to the point that Tarrlok can use nonbenders as a scapegoat without much pushback. but, while there aren’t actually very many nonbender characters in lok, those who are in the narrative are all immensely successful people (Hiroshi Sato and Varrick are both wealthy industrialists, Bumi is a military leader, etc). but this is probably just a symptom of lok’s obsession with rich and powerful people at the expense of the everyman, so I probably shouldn’t assume that the status of these nonbenders reflects the status of every nonbender in Republic City. but if we look at atla, benders were never treated as better than nonbenders on a systemic level, except maybe in the Fire Nation, and actually we have evidence of benders being treated worse than their nonbending counterparts as a result of Fire Nation imperialism in both the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes (not to mention the decimation of the Air Nomads, who according to canon are all benders.) so is bender supremacy a result of Fire Nation colonialism? but then why are Earthbenders and Waterbenders treated well under this system? further, wouldn’t Asami’s family have some kind of privilege as Fire Nationals, despite their status as nonbenders? is that why they were able to get rich in a world that’s hostile towards nonbenders? plus, Amon is one of the villains of this season, but if he’s trying to fight for a group that’s been systemically oppressed in Republic City, wouldn’t he be a good guy? but taking away people’s bending is wrong, plus he bloodbended Korra, so obviously we’re meant to interpret him as a villain. he didn’t even get a redemption arc like Kuvira did, so I guess he must have been really bad. so was it just that people didn’t like his methods, or did they genuinely not believe in his cause of fighting against bender supremacy? if they just didn’t like his methods, did anybody start working on some plans to address disparities between benders and nonbenders after they defeated Amon? did President Raiko solve the issue of bender supremacy? how did he do that so quickly? if bender supremacy was such an issue on an individual and systemic level, why did they never talk about it again? were nonbenders allowed to vote in that election? was this just a Romeo and Juliet situation where both sides had equal power and hated each other for no reason? but no, if that were the case then nonbenders would have had enough institutional power in Republic City to not be rounded up when Tarrlok decided they were a threat, and there probably would have been at least one nonbender Council member in Korra’s time. did they ever talk about the fact that a government body rounded up all the nonbenders in the city? were there reparations? did Korra and the rest of the krew assist in giving out the reparations? was there nonbender housing discrimination?” and before you know it I’m screaming and tearing my hair out demanding bryke let me see the Republic City constitution because why didn’t anyone sue the government what the fuck is this plot--

#there's honestly so much more but this post was getting really long #longpost #(derogatory)#like honestly i don't even overanalyze the other three seasons of lok but i want to understand b1 so badly #and i never can #and this isn't even bringing in the secret brothers twist #secret brothers twist (derogatory)#this is hell #i've been cursed to overthink the lok b1 storyline for all eternity haven't i #swearing tw #lok crit #lok confusion and dismay #somebody explain this to me blease i want this to end #and don't just say 'ugh you're overthinking it' 'ugh it's just plotholes stop worrying about it' bc like #if they didn't make it such an obvious analogy to racism i don't think i would care so much #but if white folks want to write shiity analogies for racism then they gotta deal with me picking it the fuck apart bc #it does not make sense! none of it makes sense!#and like if lok was a true standalone show and not a sequel series i could maybe let it slide but it's an atla sequel and they remind you of #that fact constantly. if you want your three iroh cameos you're going to have to contend with me remembering all the times non-FN benders #were screwed over by FN imperialism! bc it's not like 'oh new marginalization just dropped' like these things have causes and effects and-#ok. ok arthur breathe #let it go #just let it go #i can't let it go y'all i can't #gklsdjfkjsklfjklsjdfkjdksjljdks gosh why did i watch this fucking show make it stop make it stop #arthur deals with the lasting impact of having watched lok #imperialism

117 notes · View notes

fallout-lou-begas · 3 years

Note

A lot of people have accused yjj of being racist, particarily in regards to one of their comics involving Joshua graham, and in general saying that they glorify colonization. I mainly understand the other things they’ve done, but the racism seems inexusable. A lot of people have also been saying that yjj and their followers have harassed people. I want to get both sides of the story on this, so basically I’m asking what the deal with all this is?

Hi, anon. I'll provide my thoughts since you asked politely.

This post is quite long and can be considered an extension of my previous post on the matter.

Besides the infamous and self-admittedly ill-informed chancla comic, for which they've apologized, essentially all of the claims that Yesjejunus is racist stem from their depiction of the Dead Horses and Sorrows relative to their depiction of Joshua Graham and their original character Joan in their fanfic No Light (and to a lesser extent Learnin’ the Blues), which is heavily grounded in the setting of Honest Hearts. I think it's unambiguous that the depiction of vaguely defined "tribals" in Honest Hearts, assembled through a mishmash of disparate signifiers and recycled stereotypes and named like Warrior Cats and completely helpless without Joshua Graham's guidance, is indeed thoroughly racist, even if it was intended to be more nuanced and came from a place of self-admitted ignorance on the part of the developers. What I struggle to understand is that the developers and writers of Honest Hearts—and of Fallout: New Vegas as a whole since the entire game is rife with such mishandled, insufficient depictions of "tribals" with no explicit inclusion at all of any specific Indigenous people or presence—are given miles and miles more sympathy and leeway for their poor handling of these characters in the source material than a fanfic writer is for using the tools and setting that they were given by that source material, including the "lore" and naming conventions of the Dead Horses and Sorrows, to tell a story that means a lot to them personally, inspired by their own deepest fears and experiences with abuse, and ignited by their charismatic yet deeply and blatantly monstrous interpretation of Joshua Graham. Given that it uses the setting of Honest Hearts as a backdrop, there aren't any living characters in Honest Hearts who aren't "tribals" besides Joshua Graham and Daniel, and post-canon, Daniel wouldn’t be there. When Yesjejunus is accused of sidelining the Native characters or relegating them to the background, it's because they're just not writing a fanfic about Follows-Chalk or Waking Cloud as main characters: they're writing a specifically intentioned story about the Courier and Joshua Graham, a story that for better or worse remains faithful to the source material’s depiction of Joshua Graham’s unilateral authority over the tribes in Zion, a baked-in element of Honest Hearts and a critical narrative component of No Light. To accuse Yesjejunus of being racist on this principle in and of itself would be like accusing me of being lesbophobic if I wrote a Dead Money-set fanfic with Father Elijah as the main character instead of Christine. If you want something that centers these other characters then you'd just have to read a different story, or write it yourself.

As a final note, I do think that Yesjejunus is a skilled writer. This thought exists simultaneously with the acknowledgement that like everyone else in fandom, they're writing as a hobby and do not have the oversight of an editor on the work that they produce personally and for free. It's not lost on them that there's things about their story that they could have handled differently or more sensitively, such as the oft-cited example of the death of the pregnant Dead Horse character in No Light, with more forethought or planning at the time—even if they were bound by the constraints of Honest Heart's own setting (such as the dearth of non-tribal characters who could have possibly been in the scene instead) while writing the story. Everyone is free to critique this aspect of the story as much as they are to critique any other aspect, or to be discomforted by the whole thing (given it's a very intentionally uncomfortable story throughout), but the suggestion of so many of these "callouts" that Yesjejunus must have been cackling maniacally about the plight of poor access to medical care among real Indigenous people is a suggestion made entirely in bad faith, and one that I simply don't care to entertain.

As for the point about harassing people: if anyone's only evidence of being "harassed" by a single, specific person is anonymous messages on tumblr dot com, then I don't believe the evidence. If people are accusing Yesjejunus' "supporters" or "associates" of harassing people, then if the accusation is that this harassment is occurring either on Yesjejunus’ behalf or otherwise with their approval, then it is also going to require more evidence than the mere existence of the mean anonymous messages themselves. This goes for the rumor that they have "spies" in fandom Discord servers or whatever, too, which is a rumor that I think has only manifested among its spreaders by either self-appointed individuals speaking on no one's behalf but their own, and by the metaphorical snake eating its own tail in paranoia. Yesjejunus, and I, and all of our mutual friends have been nothing but annoyed at best and horrified at worst by the efforts of some self-appointed individuals to "defend" them with such excess vitriol. Speaking plainly, we generally avoid literally any kind of anonymous or public interaction with anyone who's vocally opposed to us as a rule, specifically to avoid this kind of debacle, and when I say "we" and "us" I'm not referring to some sort of shadowy cabal of conspirators scheming to advance the nefarious YJJ agenda, but to a group of friends. I don't know how to explain to some people who question why we praise their work or share their art sometimes how normal friendships work online.

I also take severe umbrage with the validity of the breadth of these anonymous harassment accusations because of how patently fraudulent several other claims are. Yesjejunus has recently been accused of "grooming,” for example, an accusation only even worth considering if one temporarily forgets what grooming actually is and pretends that grooming is when someone older interacts in literally any capacity with someone younger. Some will say that they’re not accusing them of grooming per se, or not of grooming by that name, but in any case, the meaning is that Yesjejunus has interacted with minors and this on its own is intended to scare and upset you. I have seen only two users actually named as "victims" of these “interactions,’ however, sas-afras and comrade-shrimp, but both users have publicly refuted this accusation because neither of them were minors when they first interacted with Yesjejunus. Frustratingly, though, these literal refutations from the literal so-called "victims" are either dismissed out of hand or muddied by hand-wringing mutterings of "well, I could have sworn they were actually minors, though" and "well they claim that they weren't actually groomed, but who really knows." The spreading and trust in completely anonymous accusations, combined with the total rejection of statements from the only people named in these accusations when their statements contradict the accusations, suggests to me that the existence of these actual interactions (and assuming these interactions occurred both intentionally and with Yesjejunus’ being fully aware of the other person being a minor) is not nearly as important as pushing the narrative that "Yesjejunus is a groomer" or “preying on minors” onto the fandom, and ensuring that anyone who doesn't take this claim completely at face value appears complicit in something horrible. As for anyone who still feels "uncomfortable" at how sas-afras or comrade-shrimp or me or anyone who is very much an adult but just so happens to be younger than Yesjejunus could ever become endeared to them, I reiterate that sometimes I don't know how to explain to people how normal friendships work online.

I want to conclude by saying something that I've said many times before: you don't have to like Yesjejunus (or me, or everybody, or literally anyone else) and no one is holding a gun to your head to befriend them or read their work or look at their art. The block and filter and unfollow buttons are very conveniently located on your dashboard and are totally free to use. Everything I've written here is not intended as some argument as to why everyone on the planet needs to be following their blog and leaving kudos on Learnin' the Blues. Still, while I think everybody has the right to curate their own dashboard and remove the content that they don't want to see, I also think it's reasonable for me to not want my friend to get their name dragged through the mud by the exaggerated and misinformed claims of petty, grudge-bearing brigadiers and self-aggrandizing fandom security guards when they'd like to just dump funny shitposts about the Burned Man's chode in peace.

#asks #anon #yesjejunus #discourse

85 notes · View notes

stillness-in-green · 3 years

Note

When MVA/MLA Arc gets animated, what will you be looking forward to the most? What (canon-compliant) additions and/or changed do you want or think Bones should make, if any?

There’s--a lot. Does that surprise anyone? There’s a lot.

o I have been foaming at the mouth for voice actor announcements for almost a year now, particularly for Trumpet, Geten and RD. Trumpet’s superpower is literally his voice! I mean, nothing about that statement requires that voice be particularly entrancing, but it certainly seems like it should be, right?? Geten is a boku-type in the manga, but that was literally the only hint foreshadowing his pretty boy face through 21 solid chapters of Pure Feral Gremlin. Everyone was shocked by Geten’s face reveal! How do you maintain that surprise value with an actual voice actor in the mix? Do you not even try? Do you play up the disparity--in which direction? I can’t wait to see what they do. And Re-Destro! Re-Destro requires so much range! From his peppy, silly businessman persona, to the urbane commander, from the overeager yes-man to the raving zealot--who on earth do you get to believably cover all that ground? I can’t even begin to guess, but I am living in anticipation of that article going up on ANN or the official Twitter sources.

o I’m also much looking forward to getting official coloring on Trumpet and Geten. Skeptic seems pretty straightforward--black, black, more black--and RD and Curious, we have color art for, but I wonder if Trumpet will also be all black clothes, to go with that dignified politician image of his, or if he’ll get some color to pep him up a little. What color are those tinted shades of his? His eyes? The wicked-cool Sevens Loud? I assume Geten is all wintery shades, but it’ll be great to confirm which ones. I mean, we all assume he’s white-haired to better annoy Dabi with family parallels, but what if he turns out to be platinum blond? And are his eyes blue? Gray? White? What color is that awful parka? Also, Re-Destro’s stress powers. Having been writing them as black since at least August--Rorschach test blots are generally black, after all, and they’re the clear inspiration--I would much like it if the anime would have my back on this. They made Destro’s mask a dark cinnamon brown, though, so I’m prepared to be unpleasantly surprised in this matter.

o Predictable MLA adaptational choices aside, I’m also eager/anxious about how they’ll handle Spinner’s narration. What I really hope is that they actually straight-up hand him ALL the narration duties--not just the stuff he dictates directly in the manga, but also e.g. the name and quirk explanation material that Present Mic normally gets, or the previews that are always handled by Deku. The opening and closing sequences are another big structural thing, of course--based on the flashed snippets of Hawks and Endeavor in both our current and the previous OP, I’m expecting we’ll see at least a bit of something referencing the upcoming internship arc (which I expect to close out the season), but I hope the villains just walk away with the closing entirely. I want my slice of life villainy ED, dangit.

o Another thing I’m eager/anxious about would be Kotarou, and the Shimura flashback generally. There’s a brittle edge of to Kotarou that I really love, and I hope he manages to keep it in the anime, despite the anime being generally not so great at moments that I would describe as “delicate.” For example, I’d like it if he doesn’t get a super deep voice, and if they could manage to keep his pretty face, and capture how deeply bitter and tired he looks in the scene where he’s reading the letter Nana left him. Also, I hope they keep the little montage bits and, crucially, the changes of clothes the family goes through. We see Tenko in no less than five, possibly as many as seven, different T-shirts through the course of that flashback. It seems like a small thing, but it’s one of the factors that makes me skeptical that AFO gave Tenko Decay, when so many days clearly go by between the opening with the man at the door and the tragic end. It’d be nice not to see too much resurgence on that just because the anime can’t be bothered to come up with more than one outfit for the Shimuras.

I have enough issues with the anime’s usual adaptation choices that I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high on the actual content of the episodes. The staff is diverting too much of its major talent to the movies (BAH) these days for me to expect the whole season to look all that great, and it’s never been particularly creative or daring outside of its climactic sakuga-heavy fight scenes anyway. I’ve also long had a bone to pick with its scoring decisions, and am already eyeballing the climax of the RD/Shigaraki fight and imagining the minor-keyed terrifying dirge I fear the anime will play there, at the moment that Re-Destro (and, shortly afterward, Spinner) are supposed to be experiencing something akin to religious awakenings. There’s also the issue of the violence and gore--judging by how the anime handled the scene where Shigaraki and Compress maim Overhaul, I have some severe reservations about how much blood they’ll be allowed to get away with, particularly in the scene where the League brutally decimates that CRC group and, of course, Shigaraki’s backstory. I’m looking at MVA to serve as a preview for how all the same issues will be addressed in the War Arc.

That bit of pessimism aside, as to what I’m hoping they’ll add or change? Well, off the top of my head.....

o I would love to get a full episode devoted to the time the League spends fighting Machia. Not that first tussle, but the six grueling weeks in the mountains. There’s so much you could add there for character building and atmosphere that Hori didn’t so much as montage through. Where was their food coming from? How’d they pick out places to pitch camp? How much access to news from outside did they have, and how frequently? What were the circumstances in which Gigantomachia “told them himself” about his great sense of smell?? Stuff like that! I don’t think we’re at all likely to get this--honestly, the series of late has had enough of a problem with trimming bits and pieces that I’m as worried about what they might cut as I am hyped about things they might add--but the one thing that gives me some hope is the training camp arc. Specifically, the moment 1-A first gets to the Pussycats’ forest, they get jumped by earth golems, a fight that the manga off-panels entirely, but the anime spends a modest amount of time on, giving the kids a little bit of time to show off their moves and such. I’d love to get something equivalent for the League.

o On a similar note, I wouldn’t turn it down if they fleshed out some of those running street fights a bit. One obvious thing comes to mind: there’s a weird jump in the manga between Skeptic and a horde of his golems being all but on top of Twice at the beginning of 233 and then that fight just--doesn’t happen. There’s no mention of it at all. I think the suggestion is that either Machia’s appearance or the tower going down interrupted it--Skeptic breaks off from his fight the same way Geten and Trumpet do theirs, shifting focus to protecting Re-Destro--but it’d be nice to see the anime touch on it.

o It’d be nice to get a bit of expansion on the nature of the bullying Spinner endured. We’re told he was, but was it limited to verbal? Did he get beaten up a lot? Was there an online element? Deku’s our only other reference point for “bullied kid,” and whatever one might think about the story’s development of Bakugou’s mentality, it’s been made clear in retrospect that there was a lot more too that than just the matter of Deku’s quirklessness. I’d love to know how Spinner’s bullying looked in comparison (not least because of some of the theories about Spinner and Deku needing to come to some kind of accord to free Shigaraki from AFO).

o Make the Villa (both here and during the War Arc) look more realistic. By which I mean, I know Horikoshi is capable of drawing interesting and lived-in interior spaces--he has an entire chapter dedicated to it in the 1-A dorm room contest, after all--but he normally doesn’t bother much with it. At UA, it’s not too distracting, because we know good and well that that whole building is probably maintained by Cementoss anyway. Ditto places like Tartarus (intentionally, dehumanizingly barren) or the League’s post-Kamino hideouts (abandoned homes and industrial spaces). But the Villa? For heaven’s sake, it’s called a mountain villa. It has a clear reception desk on the ground floor; it’s obviously some sort of high-end hotel, if not an outright resort or rentable retreat lodge. Speaking as someone who’s worked in one, places like that don’t look as fuckin’ bare as the rooms we see there always seem to. For fanfic purposes, I’m happy to go on telling myself that e.g. the pool and the bar and the restaurant(s) and the gym are in the building Cementoss doesn’t tear in half, but it’d be nice if the anime could class the whole place up a little, maybe put some real furniture and decor in the rooms that are in use. (Yes, I know this is a ridiculous nitpick.)

o This is less a change and more a correction, but for fuck’s sake, BONES, give us white-haired Shigaraki. The climax of Deika is a solid time for it, given that it’s obvious in the manga that Shigaraki’s hair gets paler in Deika--you can see it in the way Horikoshi inks it (which is to say, the way he stops inking it)! I think if we ever get white-haired Shigaraki in the anime, a somewhat better time as far as narrative justification goes would be when Shigaraki gets out of the tube in the War Arc; you could easily justify it as a side-effect of the surgery. Still, I’d rather see it here. I want white-haired Shigaraki, gleaming and brilliant through the scattering ash in that crater, a veritable angel of sacred destruction. Honestly, more than anything, the crater sequence is the one I hope I love. It’s probably my favorite single moment in the entire manga, as Shigaraki wins over Re-Destro, Spinner and Gigantomachia in the same moment, and finally comes into his own. If they can at least nail that, I’ll consider myself pretty satisfied.

#stillness-answers #my villain academia #meta liberation army #boku no hero academia #bnha #hopes and dreams

15 notes · View notes