#not a critique to be clear. its pretty good so far

[mariautistic]

Janelle Monáe really made a whole album about being bisexual and hot

#.txt #it feels weird in comparison tk the other albums where there's a more clear underlying narrative #and this one is just . im bisexual and love fucking and smoking weed #not a critique to be clear. its pretty good so far #and it's not like other albums didn't have that (specially dirty computer) just thst #dirty computer was quite literally the end of her electric lady era and is trying something different and i like it

[txttletale]

Hi! So, i'm going through Capital, great little obscure book sad that it never got any wide-reaching support (/s), have a couple questions so far though if you wouldn't mind giving some time to answer them:

What does Marx mean when he talks about 'unskilled labor' in relation to 'skilled labor'? Doesn't the vast majority of labor, even things like factory work, require training to do and especially to become good/efficient at? In the passage where he mentioned it he also mentions that (some, not all) unskilled labor, in sufficient quantities, can equal skilled labor but like. this doesn't really make any sense if its just, say, factory work vs idfk tailoring or something. So i'm a bit confused. Or is he talking about what i just mentioned where when you start out doing something you're unskilled but gradually become better at it as you do it more and more?

Who the hell is Ricardo?

factory work requires training to do, sure, but it's an order of magnitude less training than it took to learn to do those jobs before the introduction of the factories--on the level of, say, a few weeks (at absolute maximum) of training, done alongside actual work, before being fully able to work in a furniture factory, as opposed to the actual years of apprenticeship it historically took to become a carpenter. being unskilled doesn't mean that nobody can be good at a job, but it does mean, essentially, that you could grab any random person off the street and have them doing it within a week.

this distinction isn't there to be moralized about but to concretely analyze the different economic positions of these jobs--if your job is unskilled, you are going to be paid worse and have less secure employment, because you are easy to replace and the number of people looking to replace you are also competing against you to work for the lowest wages, driving your wages down. you're also paid less because the cost of reproducing your labour (the core determiner of the 'base price' of wages) is much lower. when an e.g. surgeon gets paid highly, their employer (whether the state or a capitalist) is essentially paying them more to retroactively pay for their extensive years of training.

this distinction is at its most clear when it comes to the concept of deskilling, which is crucial to marx's understanding of the industrial revolution -- with the introduction of machinery, years and years of learning how to do something by hand could be replaced with weeks of learning how to operate a machine. this deskilled huge sections of the economy and proletarianized the artisans and manufacturers who formerly did that work by making them dependent on the machines owned by factory workers. deskilling is the mechanism by which advancements in productive technology paradoxically make the jobs of those working in those fields more precarious and onerous even as the task itself becomes much easier, so it's pretty important to understand for an understanding of historical materialism.

david ricardo was a 19th century economist who advanced the ideas first laid forward by adam smith re: the labour theory of value and was the first to postulate (although without addressing the signficant political implications of this!) that real wages had an inverse relationship to real profits. marx draws heavily on his ideas but is also critical of them. capital is subtitled 'a critique of political economy' -- ricardo is a key figure in the field of political economy that he's critiquing.

#ask #yurinullification

[libraford]

Idk maybe it's because I'm autistic and don't get how things are supposed to work (I also haven't been able to work for over a decade due to disability so take this all with a heap of salt) but it feels like she needs someone to blame for problems.

You said last year there were three leads but this year you're doing the work of three on your own. Did they quit or get fired? Maybe someone else was the assigned "problem child" last year? But the fact that you didn't get any useful feedback at the times problems supposedly happened and they continued using your work...it just reads like a power trip on her end tbh

One of them left to become a veterinarian and do photography on the side. The other one of them left because there was a pretty big death in the family and also oldest kid was going through his senior year. Both have said that they might come back, but so far neither of them have committed.

The two of them were nearly perfect leads. Like they did all the paperwork properly and had all the details right and they didn't rush and they rarely did anything wrong.

Except when they did. And since I learned from one of them, I learned on all of her mistakes.

So I've had to be retrained.

Again and again and again.

There would typically only be one lead per job, so its not like I'm doing the work of three people the way I was doing the work of like... 7 people at the flower shop. I am still doing the work of one person, but I am doing it every day instead of only two to three times a week.

So the mistakes I learned are more obvious now and I am put in positions where previously I was not, like having to call as soon as there's a problem- because previously I was not often having these problems. I get dinged for not following procedure for this.

She tried training me on groups last year, but every time there was a chance to learn on the job something interrupted it. The first time it was because the person we had doing individuals was going painfully slowly and she had me set up my unit to clear out the bottleneck. The second time it was because our individuals photographer went into labor.

So I've been trained wrong on a bunch of things and had to be retrained. Attempts to train me properly have been interrupted, but she thinks that I received proper training and that I should be good to go.

So I do it. And I do it wrong. Over and over again.

And then I get the critique and there is disagreement between my boss and her boss about how I'm supposed to have done it.

And then I try again. And there's disagreement between my boss and me about how I was supposed to do it.

So my spirit is fuckin' crushed lately and I just want to get to the end of the season but of course there's YET ANOTHER critique at the end of the year where she says I'm bad at receiving critique when I've had to be retrained several times in several different areas, and she claims that NOTHING HAS CHANGED FROM MY INITIAL TRAINING even though documentably it HAS, which makes me feel like a fucking crazy person for suggesting that its hard to keep up with the changes sometimes.

And she says she's tired of arguing with me about how things are supposed to be done when I'm supposed to KNOW how things are done by now because this is my THIRD year in the business and why am I so argumentative?

At the last groups job, I asked her to help be out a little bit and check my work to make sure I was doing it right. I wasn't even done with the first group and she jumps in and tells me my numbers are wrong, changes it all and that's how we found that the guides were different. But when I talk to her about what made me mad there, she has a different story- she says that I did 2 or 3 classes wrong before she jumped in. Which is not what happened to my recollection.

I've asked her to take a more passive role and she got mad at me because she swears that she did take a passive role and now I'm being inconsistent- because I asked her for help and now I'm asking her not to get her hands in it. So now I'm confused again because I remember that day completely differently, and when I asked the rest of the crew they said that she was being pushy. Once she left and I was on my own, I did fine- but being unable to even get through a whole class without her jumping in to save the day kind of crushed me.

So I think she's misremembering a LOT. And making it my problem for bringing up inconsistencies, confusions, and changes. Either that or I have worse memory problems than I thought I did.

And now I'm being told that I go too fast. Because there were days last season where we were done an entire hour earlier than we were supposed to be. And I asked her- did people complain? Were my photos bad because I was fast?

No, no one complained. We had less retakes this year than we did any year.

If no one complained, then the problem is that I'm not taking time with the students to get the perfect photo. The problem is that you don't think I could possibly be that good and that fast at the same time. But if a kid only needs thirty seconds to get the pose, why should I take more time than is needed?

My photos have improved significantly from my first year. Oh my god, they've improved so much. But I'm struggling to learn a new, complicated thing for which I've gotten mixed messages and not gotten a lot of consistent guidance on.

And because I get confused when something is different from what was described, I am told that I can't take criticism.

Well yeah, no- if that's the criticism you've got for me, no I can't take criticism.

[hojiteaversion]

Why I Think RC Has Trouble Sticking Their Landings

(Or, a pantser talks about structure and DLS for like 8 paragraphs)

My short answer: Because these stories are first drafts

Longer answer: ⬇️

1) (Lack of) Developmental editing

RC's model has its authors write long stories 2-4 chapters at a time. As much as the authors might perfect these chapters, they have no way to change something later on if they realize a scene no longer matches the big picture. An author may revise and make a batch of 4 flawless chapters, but it still doesn't mean they will fit the story seamlessly.

Developmental editing, according to this article, "involves feedback on the big picture of a […] writing piece. A developmental editor will critique structural elements like the plot, characters, theme, and organization of ideas." They also say that this kind of editing is recommended after the first or second draft.

So this type of revision would help an author make sure every character has its place (too many LIs and uneven LI screentime could be fixed), that characterization is consistent, that the plot is clear and moving at a good pacing, etc.

In DLS, for example, things that might be revised after a developmental editing: Leo's introduction scenes not matching his characterization later on, the Leo/Vlad rivalry that seems a bit strange in hindsight, more prominent role and scenes for Sandra, a more consistent progression in Noe/Laia and Ezel/Laia routes, fairer distribution of LI scenes (🫠), Laia's character motivations, the plot mysteries might be revealed to the reader a bit earlier, etc.

But these stories are arguably first drafts that will never be revised holistically (like Choices stories are/used to be, as far as I'm aware), so problems that only become clear once you're further along might not be fixed satisfactorily (or at all).

What sort of problems? Well...

2) Structure, part I

So the visual novel medium is fairly recent, right? Choose Your Own Adventure stories have existed for a while, but, I'm pretty sure, not in the scale of RC stories. 3 seasons demand a lot of story. And the thing is, I'm not sure there is a lot of guidance out there regarding story structure for interactive stories? Not that I've found, at least.

This is a problem, I think, because even if these authors follow the existing material on story structure (Save the Cat, Hero's Journey, Classic 3 Act, Seven-Point Structure, etc.), they will have to do the work of adapting it for a visual novel that A) has 3 seasons as a default, and B) 3 seasons of more or less equal length.

Look, it absolutely can be done! But my point is, I think it's generally uncharted territory and requires a lot of problem-solving. It's not just figuring what must happen in this story for it to be satisfying, it's also deciding when each thing must happen in a way that fits the requirements of three seasons and their finales, which must all fit together, but also be individually exciting and balance setup and payoff. And there is no way to go back and fix it if you realize you messed up the pacing somewhere! Not to mention…

3) Structure, part II: Routes

Not only do they have to figure out plot and structure (without being able to revise the finished story as a whole), but they also need to figure out and balance at least 4 different dynamics. As in, when it gets established, how to keep those dynamics fresh even after they get together, and how to synchronize MC's development with that relationship and its milestones. And again, it's not like there is a manual or a right answer. You have to write and fix afterwards — except they can't 😀. So if an author realizes later on that x couple needed a scene earlier on, or that they rushed things, or any other problem, there is nothing to be done except maybe add more scenes that might stand out from whatever they're trying to correct.

A tiny example of this problem in DLS would be Leo and Laia telling Derya that they're dating, which is clearly a correction of the scene in 4x02 where Laia called him "a friend" because "[she] thought it went against local customs to make a show of pre-marital relationships". In 2019 Istanbul. It would just make more sense if she had just called him her boyfriend in the first place.

4) Authors

I'll admit I'm least informed about this one, but based on a few interviews I've read with the authors, it seems some of them have never written fiction or visual novels before…? I could be wrong! But! Imagine being new to this medium and having to figure all of that ⬆️ out, with the limitations that RC's model brings. I'm not sure how much training and/or assistance they get in this entire process. It just seems a lot for one person.

And I have no answers for any of this, by the way! I don't work there, I don't know how the company works or how it doesn't. This is just my tentative opinion based on my limited experience with writing. It's extremely hard, and I genuinely cannot imagine trying to do any of that ⬆️ in the first place, but especially if I had to get it right on the first try.

Every writing advice on Earth recommends multiple drafts on longform writing because it's impossible to make your story the best it can be on the first attempt. So I think the RC endings often being unsatisfying might be, mainly, a consequence of that.

#romance club #the examples are all DLS because that's what I'm like‚ qualified to talk about djkfghfdkjg #this is just my personal opinion! i could be very wrong on all accounts‚ but it's an explanation that makes sense to me atm

[wrenhavenriver]

Okay I’m not done talking about this actually. Re: the Dishonored series’ attempts to reconcile its critical views of imperialism with keeping the characters who sit at the very top of the Empire likable, I think DH1 is considerably less obvious/glaring about this internal conflict than DH2 because: 1) it’s, duh, the first in the series, and suspension of disbelief comes a lot more naturally the first time you’re told “things will be better now, for real” than the second; and 2) Jessamine’s rule sees so little screentime it’s much easier to portray the miseries of the game as entirely attributable to Burrows’ rule (and the actions of other assorted Bad People™) without directly confronting the imperial system that put them all in a position to seize and promptly abuse power in the first place. Under a read more because I can't shut up, sorry.

Like, say you play DH1 for the first time on low chaos: you get the happy ending epilogue speech, and even if it seems to smooth everything over a little too optimistically for a game that otherwise shows a collapsing society and the corruption that brought it to that state in grim, unflinching detail, well, that’s mostly okay—you maintained low chaos, after all, in essence proving the Outsider’s “Perhaps that’s just the nature of man” theory wrong, and the good effects just rippled outward to a much a larger scale, which was pretty much the point of the chaos system in the first place. If it all sounds a little bit like the happy ending to a parable not particularly grounded in the realities of systems of power that the rest of the game was critiquing, maybe that’s just what happens when an entity as long-lived and far-sighted as the Outsider summarizes a period that is little more than a miniscule blip in time to him. Stand far enough back from something and all the rough edges blur out to nothing.

(Plus it’s a video game after all, so maybe you can suspend your disbelief/any personal political beliefs about real world empires you may have brought with you. Maybe it's nice to imagine that things can change meaningfully for the better for Dunwall and the other Isles simply by plopping a Kaldwin back onto the throne.)

The existence of DH2 makes it clear, though, that the ending monologue to DH1 really is more fairytale than reality (or, you know, what happens when a game gets greenlit for a sequel the devs of three years ago didn't know they'd get). A Kaldwin takes the throne—under the watchful eye and protection of her witchcraft-using Serkonan father, at that, a man with viscerally personal history with the Abbey, the City Watch, and the deeply xenophobic nobility—and despite all those very real family connections and personal reasons to want to reform things for the better, we step into Emily’s rule to see the people of Serkonos being trampled on and worked to death in the silver mines, the Abbey still freely hunting down and torturing or otherwise “disappearing” people suspected of witchcraft, and the Guard casually beating and murdering citizens—in one notable case, by throwing one directly into the same brutal Wall of Light technology mobilized to great effect by Burrows’ corrupt regime and that is still in wide use around Emily’s Empire fifteen years later.

Some of this chaos was instigated by Delilah and her inner circle (especially the Duke) leading up to the coup, but much of it is preexisting corruption that can’t be blamed on her—she and the coven certainly had no reason to prop up the Abbey, for one, and she didn’t have to create the aristocratic bitterness motivating turncoats like Ramsey, only give them an outlet for what was already simmering. Meagan, Sokolov, and Lucia Pastor all make it abundantly clear that this was not a momentary slip-up—Dunwall Tower had been looking the other way while violence and unrest grew for some time, because the human cost of keeping silver flowing was out of sight and out of mind, a function basically built into the system of Imperial rule. Not a bug, but a feature. A tendency toward retaining corrupt institutions, an erosion of empathy, because that’s what keeps the wheels turning and wealth being funneled upward.

So when low chaos Emily professes in mission nine that she’s learned her lesson and that from now on she’ll Pay Attention, really! to the four nation Empire she’s the head of, and the happy epilogue plays and we get another Outsider monologue about the golden age ahead, it just seems…vaguely absurd? Like, we already saw this! Burrows, Campbell, and the Bastard Trio™ of the loyalists were deposed or otherwise gotten rid of, making room for Good People™ with Good Intentions™ to take their place in charge and fix things—you’ve got Emily on the throne with Corvo to guide her; Yul Khulan, a “kind” man and eventual close personal ally of Emily’s, becomes High Overseer; Curnow, widely reputed as a Reasonable Authority Figure and rare man of principle in the Guard, has survived (and presumably still has some years of service as a Captain before the retirement mentioned in The Corroded Man).

And then we fast forward fifteen years and all these groups...still suck? The Empress hates her job and is eating off plates made of silver mined by Karnacan laborers dying hideously of terrible respiratory ailments, the Overseers we see in Karnaca are ransacking homes and torturing Outsider worshippers (a group including such dangerous people as *checks notes* newspaper artists), half the City Guard is on the payroll of the shitty aristocrats supporting Delilah’s coup, and the Grand Guard is passing the time by throwing people into Walls of Light. Emily’s reign began with a veritable A-team of Certified Good People and fifteen years later it's barely made a dent, because the system of imperial rule is built from the ground up to shelter corruption and complacency, to resist change, no matter who’s in charge and whether that person is “paying attention” or not. It’s beyond the power of one sufficiently motivated Empress and a team of well-intentioned people in positions of authority below her.

It’s tempting to say “no, it really was just an issue of Emily not taking her duties seriously, look at Jessamine’s rule, or Euhorn’s before her!” but the thing is Obvious Disasters like Violent Coups Aside we really don’t have much evidence that their rules were all that much better, or at the very least any less prone to corruption? DH1 again has the advantage over DH2 here, mostly by way of omission. We don’t get to actually see what life in the Empire is like under Jessamine, just that tiny sliver of time in the Prologue returning as Corvo to Dunwall Tower, where despite the player being told there’s a deadly plague about to bring the city to a “breaking point,” the scenery is beautiful and calm and the staff are polite and affable. It makes for very compelling contrast when the game fast forwards six months to the dank misery of Coldridge Prison, and then later the grim state of the streets filling up with corpses and weepers.

Mission six completes the comparison with a return to Dunwall Tower, where the courtyard is now brimming with hostile guards and surveillance towers and tallboys, and one lone maid who openly laments Jessamine’s passing. Life under the authoritarian despot who purposely instigated a plague for the purpose of wiping out the lower classes is, obviously, much worse than life under the benevolent Empress who is introduced to us passionately advocating for saving the lives of all of her citizens. But, in the same way Emily and her inner circle of Well-Intentioned People weren’t enough to dislodge the entrenched corruption and brutality—or prevent a new wave of it—Jessamine’s kindness can’t paint over the miseries of the imperial system she presides over. We the players see Coldridge Prison for the first time in the six-months-later flashback of Burrows’ rule, but it existed during Jessamine’s time—guards state explicitly in the DLC that she and Corvo used to come inspect it, in fact. Jessamine wholly loves Corvo, a native of Serkonos, but anti-Serkonan prejudice runs rampant in her court and city. Corvo and Emily wholly love Jessamine too, but the people of Dunwall are somewhat divided on the matter (“Long live the Empress!” “She was a WENCH!” / “Not everyone did, but I really liked the Empress…”). Burrows deceived Jessamine and took advantage of her trusting nature, but he only had the resources to do so in the first place because of the system that promoted him to Royal Spymaster, a position of incredible power and very little accountability.

Euhorn we know the least about, but we are told he enjoyed a “prosperous age”—a sentiment that falls somewhat flat when we learn that he had an affair with a chamber maid (the power differential of which is highly questionable at best), strung along the resulting illegitimate daughter with promises of elevating her to a princess that he never intended to keep, then took his chance when said daughter was blamed for breaking a vase to throw her and her mother out onto the streets, where the mother is brutalized by a prison guard and eventually dies in agony in debtor’s prison, leaving the daughter to fend for herself alone in the world. All of which shows us that the Empire is, in this age of “prosperity,” still a place of extreme power imbalances where the Emperor takes advantage of women in his employ, debtor’s prisons exist, guards can cause fatal injuries to civilians on a whim and face no consequences, and children are thrown with disdain onto the streets to die. Which, on many levels, is not all that different from the ages of other rulers who follow.

tl;dr these games show us over and over again that the Empire is built on a fundamentally broken system that perpetuates corruption and then try to append “but it’s okay so long as the people in charge are good people who are paying attention to their jobs” to the end of them for the sake of keeping those characters likable, and while the first game can get away with this by virtue of being the first game and using Jessamine’s rule primarily as a way to showcase how bad Burrows’ rule sucks by comparison, this falls flat when the very existence of the second game provides ample evidence that the Good Intentions of Generally Good People are not enough to counteract the entrenched cruelties of the institutions that keep imperialism afloat. Okay I'm going to go get another hobby now bye.

#kathryn plays video games

[genericpuff]

I’m curious about some of your recent criticism of RS’s past making medical fetish art… in one post you mentioned there being a connection/continuation between her past art and the “problematic” parts of LO and cited DDLG and medical fetishism more specifically.

Can you say more about what makes those two things problematic? The obsession with Lolita and sexualizing actual minors is one thing, but kink isn’t inherently problematic IMO.

And, just to be clear, I appreciate your critiques of her art/the sloppy way that WT is shoving LO down our collective throats even though it’s way past its peak… I’m just more curious about how her past fetish art fits into your critiques of her as an artist.

I mean, that kind of enters "separate the art from the artist" territory which I don't feel you can actually do when the artist is inherently problematic and is sowing those problems into their art. But that's a separate topic.

Kink being a factor in her work is not an issue, and frankly, I didn't bring up any of the medical fetish art as to say it's an issue as a whole, more so to point out how this has pretty much always been Rachel's M.O. and it makes it make WAY more sense as to why LO is written the way it is knowing that (and more so just pointing out how weird it is that she apparently wants to ditch her life pre-LO but still keeps the usedbandaid name).

But I think it becomes far more of an issue when we all know her work is affiliated with Webtoons, a platform that predominantly markets to children as young as 11 years old.

Like, The Doctor Pepper Show was kinky as all hell, and it didn't try to hide that, it said right in its description that it was a medical fetish comic and it made it clear it was meant for people who were 18+. LO, meanwhile, is constantly trying to play this game of tug of war between its ideas and what it's trying to accomplish and who it's meant for. On the one hand, it's meant for teenagers who can identify themselves through Persephone's struggles as a teenage girl coming of age; on the other hand, it's meant for horny adult women who can insert themselves into Persephone's relationship with Hades and fantasize about getting swept away by a rich man who will solve all their problems, which isn't exactly something you want to be advertising/normalizing to the former demographic. It's trying to be both a serious deconstruction of misogyny and purity culture but it's also flippantly reinforcing misogyny and purity culture through the fetishization of Persephone as an "eternally 19" character who settles down with practically the first guy who pays attention to her.

When it comes to kink, I think it's more an issue of Rachel dangerously toeing the line between kink and predatory. There's nothing wrong with being into BDSM or the gothic lolita aesthetic, but there are people who use those labels as a way to normalize more abusive ideals and behavior (like what abusive men try to accomplish by infiltrating the BDSM community and claiming their abuse is healthy and fun, or when pedophiles try to infiltrate the gothic lolita community with the intent of fetishizing children).

Rachel being a fetish artist isn't the issue and that was never the point I was trying to make. The point is understanding Rachel's roots pre-LO and how they influence LO in ways that aren't necessarily good for the comic, its narrative, or the audience it's selling itself to. If LO were an 18+ series on a platform that marketed it as such and was unapologetically sexual/kinky the same way The Doctor Pepper Show was, then I don't think there would be quite as much of an issue (though it would still be held accountable if it did do anything morally questionable like what I mentioned above). But it's constantly being marketed to children and young teens, and it's being used as a self-insert power fantasy by Rachel to boot, rather than operating as an actual story with anything meaningful to say.

To use an example outside of LO, at least mongie had the nerve to step away from the WT's platform when she realized it wasn't going to suit the work she wanted to put out. She wanted Let's Play to be far more sexual than what they were allowing her to do, so she left. And while I don't like Let's Play all that much either, it has PLENTY of its own issues that almost seem to be adopted straight from LO, I can still respect her stepping away from the platform when she realized it wasn't going to be a good fit for what she wanted to pursue.

And no, none of that's to say that Rachel should leave WT or that she's in the same situation as mongie lmao but the identity crisis is evident in how LO is written, it feels very much like it can't decide what it truly wants to be.

That's all my two cents though, take it for what you may. That post about her medical fetish art wasn't meant to be like "LOOK AT HOW GROSS SHE IS, EWWW!" it was literally meant to just point out that she's still using a username from her medical fetish backstory for some reason despite the fact that she's tried REALLY hard to act like she never did any projects pre-LO. Shit, there are comics she's done pre-LO that weren't even fetish/kink comics, such as Castle Castle:

That's why I'm also not sharing much further and leaving it up to others to do their own digging, I don't think there's much to gain from sharing her kink art from 2004 unless it's somehow directly tied to her identity now in some way (like the madame issue drawing showing off the bandaids and self-insert aspects). A lot of that stuff is in the past. It's just odd that she's trying to leave much of it in the past but still couldn't let go of that one username that's still affiliated with it. I also think it's frankly ridiculous that she's trying to erase practically everything pre-LO, not just the stuff that she might cringe over or might be too sexual for her modern audience, but also the stuff like Castle Castle that she really should share, IMO! Because it's neat and it shows that she didn't just come from nothing, she made so much art pre-LO that ought to be shared and seen and preserved, but it seems like she's too focused on selling the whole "one hit wonder" image these days that she never bothers to mention the work that I'm sure even her own fans would love to see.

As a final note to wrap up this long response, it's wild that it's often only the critical community sharing these old art pieces, because a lot of the time, barring questioning of her values and ideals that are present in some of her old pieces, most people really like them and have lots of good things to say about them. I think the ultimate takeaway is how sad it is that she's fallen this low in terms of quality and effort. I think she is capable of making beautiful art, but somewhere along the way, she either stopped caring or lost the drive and that really sucks to see.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #antiloreolympus #anti lore olympus #ama #ask me anything #anon ask me anything #anon ama

[adobe-outdesign]

Do you have any thoughts on the Bronzor line?

I always really liked this line. I'm a big fan of object-mons that are more on the stylized and abstract side, and these guys have some really cool markings and body types.

In Bronzor's case, it sports a blue circular body with two eyes in the middle and a series of repeating circles, which give it radial symmetry. It's somewhat "alien" looking due to not really having a normal face, which I dig.

If I had one thing to critique about it, it would be that it's hard to tell what it is. Bronzor here is actually a mirror, which one had a reflection in the past. This is our only mirror-based Pokemon so far, so it feels like a bit of a shame that it's not clear that is what its supposed to be; I could easily see a mirror on its backside. Maybe they didn't want to do it due to Gen 4's sprite limitations?

Oddly enough, it actually has a beta backsprite that's a repeat of the front; in other words, it was meant to reflect at one point, just in a more abstract way than literally having a reflective surface back there. Like I said, what we got is by no means bad, but I do like this angle just a bit more for conveying the theme better and just being all-around weird.

Speaking of all-around weird, Bronzong exists. The line suddenly going from a mirror to a bell feels a bit random in theory, but it's supposedly based off of an old Japanese myth involving mirrors being melted down to make a bell. Also, the similar visual styles help connect the two in a way that makes them feel like they belong together, what with the colors, markings, and faces.

Speaking of faces, I LOVE Bronzong's face. First, those red eyes of its are actually three-dimensional, giving it a slightly dead-eyed look that's pretty unique:

And secondly, that mouth. Instead of just doing a generic smiley line, it instead has a freaky set of rectangular, teeth-like markings wedged firmly between the eyes. This works with the other various patterns, such as the stripes on the "arms" and the darker patches above the eyes, and serves to make it look all the more strange and alien.

I also love how the "arms" are really just the two structures on either side of a dōtaku (a type of Japanese bell that Bronzong's is based off of). The shape and the way they're on top of the body anthropomorphizes it just enough without loosing the bell-like aspects.

My only little nitpick is that it's strange that the colors change slightly between stages, with Bronzong being more of a teal instead of a blue and having red eyes instead of yellow. Both palettes are fine, but I don't see why they couldn't have just picked one and stuck with it. Obviously that's a minor thing however, and I still really like the 'mon regardless.

Overall, this is a very good line. The designs are interesting and unique, helped by the interesting body shapes and patterns, and I love the unconventional faces. Definitely a win in my book.

#bronzor #bronzong #pokemon #pokemon reviews

[edwad]

If you had to pick one book to give background on the political economy Capital is criticizing would you suggest Rubin's History of Economic Thought? Any major issues you have with it? Also wonder what you think of Catherine Colliot-Thélène's claim in the afterword that: "If the ‘naturalness’ of economic laws is definitely illusory, the critique of political economy must deny the very existence of the object of political economy"?

rubin's history is written from a pretty sophisticated/defensible marxian perspective so it definitely has a lot going for it in that regard, but that is also its primary limit because it treats marx as the chief authority on the history of economic thought. this might be helpful for thinking through marx's project as he understood it, but it's not as good when it comes to taking a step back and estimating marx's performance by any other standard (eg 100 years of HET scholarship since rubin's text, 150 years since marx's, etc)

as far as the afterword goes, this message pushed me to take another look at it. i tried to read it a few years ago and found it basically indecipherable lmfao but this time it was pretty easy sailing so im not sure if im just more comfortable with the language now or what but it seemed to hit a lot similar notes to the kinds of things ive said here. it is very clearly indebted to a lot of the same post-althusserian stuff that ive been talking about (MCCT is cited approvingly several times and really seems to be the chief text that colliot-thélène is working with), so im sympathetic to some of the broad stroke theoretical problems being posed, but i would quibble with some of the assumptions at play.

she acknowledges the changes to marxs plans for the CoPE and even some of the theoretical transformations, but i think she draws too generously from the pre-capital marx of the grundrisse and the 59 contribution (or sometimes even further back to his work in the 40s!). there are both valuable texts for illuminating certain elements of marxs work/thinking, but you have to be careful in how you use these texts to make claims about marxs later work. she also has a tendency to hone in on the word "equilibrium" which comes out of the secondary material she's working with (namely MCCT) and not from marx, which then turns into her spending a lot of time hammering on about marxian equilibrium that i think is less textually justifiable than she believes, although it's crucial to her argument. how this bleeds into the stuff on "capital in general" is especially confusing because, as she notes, rosdolsky is probably right to believe that this approach to the object is dropped by marx (so why does this get held against him here?) etc etc.

regardless, it has an obvious family resemblance to the species of critique im working through, because she shares the same concern over the object of critique itself, but it is much narrower and i think too bogged down in categories which more properly belong to 20th century economics and the particular style of post-sraffian ricardo interpretation which dominated the minds of intellectual historians in CSE circles around the time she wrote this.

the result is that i think she misses the mark in pretty important ways, even if i think the conceptual difficulties of marxs categories are worth pointing out. the problem however is that these are the same kinds of issues which have been pointed out by clever marx-reconstructionists since rubin himself. this might be interesting marx scholarship, but it's not necessarily damning to his project, as all of the attempts to salvage him have made relatively clear (some of them have been quite successful even!)

when it comes to her specific claim about the naturalness of economic laws, i think this basically forfeits the epistemological element that she herself tries to raise. her entire critique could basically be summarized as follows:

marxs categories are non-empirical, but their merit is supposedly in their interconnections akin to an organic whole, so that, like a biological process, the invisible mechanisms are demonstrated in the surface results (relative prices etc). marx does this because the bourgeois economics which he is critiquing is modeled after natural science (specifically physics, although this is never really named in her critique), however the economy is not like a natural science at all. therefore we have to ask why marx's assumptions take this naturalistic assumption for granted if he is trying to prove that these are not natural categories etc etc.

this basically poses the question which marx himself tries to account for, as if he is failing for beginning with the exact problem she wishes he had addressed. its a very confusing place for her to end up, and i wonder if her afterword was rushed to completion because she suddenly reaches this point in the last couple of pages (the main criticism as you've quoted belongs to the last paragraph) after what strikes me as a very carefully written and thought-through piece until maybe the last third of the text. to suggest "if economic laws aren't natural then they must be fake so why bother trying to study them unless you're guilty of the same thing" fails to ask why the political economists would ever begin to conceive of the phenomena in this way. she is disinterested in the plausibility of the bourgeois conception, as if it's simply an erroneous collective accident and the fact that so many people's beliefs are structured this way isn't noteworthy once we admit that it's wrong. the irony is that, unlike marx, the result is that she basically takes this for granted by simply dismissing marx's immanent critique of it as being more of the same.

[zukkacore]

Imo the new PJO shows greatest strength is definitely Riordon’s craft maturing since the lightning thief in terms of…. Thematic coherence?

I think PJO has always been fairly thematically coherent & impactful in its messaging but especially at first the books feels much more like fairly lighthearted action adventure road trip narratives that are extremely episodic and more focused on being entertaining than having something To Say. Which, they’re books for middle schoolers, I think an “adventure road trip with some unserious monster slaying” is a perfectly serviceable concept and in execution riordan is admirably gifted in that his writing can be entertaining for both the primary demographic kids but also adults.

But they’re not books that just suddenly decided to half-heartedly have a theme (unlike other kids fantasy from the period I don’t dare namedrop lmao), because of all the foreshadowing and the motivations behind the antagonists (one antagonist in particular), it’s clear he probably had a thematic direction for the series, even if I don’t know how planned the initial 5 book run was. I really do admire what the book has to say abt bad systems that are set up to leave certain folks behind, and what parents owe to their children, & abt how easy it is to fall for charismatic leaders promising for a return to glorious prelapsarian past instead of trying to provide real solutions.

In the series, what I’ve really been enjoying is how every interaction and monster doesn’t just feel episodic, each monster feels like a facet that is part of the central thesis regarding the gods & their relationship to their children. I think the writing strength does a lot of heavy lifting because while overall I think the show is pretty solid, I do have a few critiques.

Mainly one of the frustrating things probably has something to do with budgeting. Scenes that are very thrilling and action driven in the book are truncated & often replaced with a lot of kinda slow oddly paced walk-&-talk scenes. Probably bc that’s much cheaper to shoot. Riordan himself seems to be fairly transparent about the changes he’s made in adaptation due to those limitations.

The effects for tv show cgi are not perfect but pretty impressive (I’ll reiterate, for tv cgi, the bar is on the floor….) but there’s a weird emptiness or sterile quality that makes the world feel not so lived in. Idk I think this was the most apparent to me in the casino episode, which I know riordan hates the movie & we joke abt the poker face scene but I was honestly kinda bewildered at how lifeless and boring they made the intentionally enticing distraction of the lotus casino seem. I get there can’t be gambling, but maybe an arcade? A buffet? Something?

I sound like I’m really going in on the show but I’m really not, I’ve been really enjoying the adaptation so far. The flaws are not show-ruining but I do think they culminate in a result that struggles w pacing & lacks the propulsive energetic quality of the books. Which, adaptations can be different, but to me that quality was always a strength of the series that imo I would’ve prioritized in adaptation. What saves some of the problems for me is that even tho a lot content is kinda delivered in this weird inert way of the actors doing their best to bring life to scenes where people are standing around stiffly and exchanging dialogue, the content itself is really good. His knowledge of his own characters & their dynamics, their desires, their place in the narrative, is so clear. The emphasis placed on Sally Jackson in particular & her influence on Percy & his values is a great additive element to the show. Again, the thematic coherence that has evolved since the lightning thief is in full display. For example, before last nights episode, I was actually saying to my mom that I hoped they would cut the procrustes water bed scene bc that chapter always felt weirdly fillery and goofy in its tone, but it was integrated in such an organic way that I really liked it!

I’ve been saying for like a decade that I thought PJO’s monster of the week episodic structure would make a better show than movie, and like. All im saying is that being apollo cursed with the gift of prophecy isn’t always a bad thing

#shut up janelle

[nirvanai]

ok i Will actually get onto the topic of how i think the narrative structure of aini works to show Ryuki’s mental health. but quick foreword i guess lmao this will probably be a bit disorganized because adhd brain go brrr. also i’ll be fair and bring up a way the narrative I think maybe could’ve changed a touch to strengthen this effect in the second half of the game, though hey if we get dlc maybe it wont be an issue-

so, the tl;dr of what I meant with my last post on the topic is essentially this: by playing the game both as Ryuki and Mizuki, we’re seeing both how Ryuki perceives the world around him, and how people perceive him as interacting with the world. and I think that what they do with this is good, both as a means of building tension, but also in terms of showing (especially on a second viewing) how his disability impacts his view of the world.

(also big spoiler warning for endgame characters and plot points.)

so despite this being a Ryuki post i’m actually gonna start with looking at things from Mizuki (Bibi)’s perspective, in specific the scene at the rooftop amusement park after the shooting incident. From Bibi’s side, we get to talk to boss- and while it’s very clear that she’s (rightfully!) angry at him over this, it’s also very clear that boss is concerned for him. When you wink psync with her, it’s pretty obvious that she does want to protect Ryuki as best she can. And while her somnium representation of events isn’t 1:1 with reality, i think it does a better job of showing how she feels. 

Bibi seems pretty worried about Ryuki too- despite the obvious conflict that’s going to come up soon between the two of them, there’s no real indication that before that she ever hated him. She’s concerned whenever he’s dissociating around him, maybe a bit unsettled but doesn’t like him pushing himself too hard.

In comparison, we look at Ryuki’s scene where boss is chewing him out, and see none of that. Boss reads only as angry, and on a first viewing of the game, it feels fairly undeserved. (Yeah, he let the figure from the cathedral get away, but its because they dropped the bridge on him! Is that really his fault?) The consequences and potential demotion feel wildly unbalanced compared to what we as players just saw, and boss reads as almost overreacting angry.

Now, obviously with the context of the full game, you know that she’s angry for pretty understandable reasons. But all of that concern you’ll see on Mizuki’s side doesn’t seem to come through, and even her wink psync somnium in that scene reads as mostly just exhausted and frustrated.

So for how this ties into Ryuki’s mental health and storytelling- in my opinion Ryuki shows very strong signs of RSD, or ‘rejection sensitive dysphoria’. It’s a common symptom in people with ADHD (and it can also be a symptom of other disorders too! I’m just most familiar with ADHD personally), and sparing a big explanation, people with RSD are generally hyper-sensitive to most forms of criticism and rejection. It’s important to note that this doesn’t necessarily even mean actual critique and rejection- even perceived “negative reactions” from people around you can set of RSD episodes when those people are actually perfectly happy with you. As a result people with adhd often tend to either procrastinate a lot or become intense people pleasers (or both), in order to delay potential judgement from peers out of fear of the feelings that comes with.

It’s also important to note that RSD responses usually aren’t just sadness or frustration with yourself- it’s a genuinely catastrophic and often times extremely distressing emotional response that can be very difficult to predict or control. You can see it in Ryuki in that scene- boss says he’s being demoted, and immediately he gets extremely upset and goes as far as to say he’d rather be a bum on the street than a disgraced cop. Tama has to calm him by reminding him its not the end of the world- which is very much how RSD episodes can often feel when you’re dealing with it.

So what I’m getting at here is this pair of scenes actually does an excellent job at demonstrating how Ryuki’s mental health impacts how he perceives the people around him. While with Bibi we see boss being concerned and pulling her weight trying to protect him, with Ryuki it can feel like she’s almost irrationally mad and practically ruining his life. By hiding the actual context of why he’s being reprimanded, it does an excellent job and portraying those feelings of catastrophizing and hurt that come along with episodes like that.

When it comes to Ryuki’s dissociative episodes and memory issues, the game starts off right from the very beginning making sure that the player is fully aware that Ryuki isn’t entirely okay. There’s trivia bits about it, characters will comment on him acting strange and suggest he get checked out at the hospital, and his file from the future section makes it very explicit that he already had problems, but they got worse due to the case. We go into things knowing that Ryuki is Not Okay, which I think is very important to how we experience him as a character.

While playing as Ryuki, we see how he experiences dissociative episodes in first person multiple times. We also get to see Tama’s repeated concern for him because of it, though- she can’t see exactly what he sees and she can’t just read his mind, so he’s alone (with the player) in this. People are often asking him if he’s okay, if he needs help, suggesting he should go see a doctor, but he brushes it off every time. To him, that’s a fair response on the subject. His expression after these moments is usually tired for a bit and then a smile to reassure Tama that he’s fine. 

In comparison, when we see him as Mizuki and as Bibi, it becomes even more clear that he’s really... not. In the second half of the game we get to see Ryuki not how he sees himself, but how people are seeing him, and his issues start to feel a lot more obvious. He’s been denying help for a long time now, and he doesn’t want to stop the investigation for treatment- he literally walks out of the hospital after being told he has a serious memory disorder.

And the comparison between how he views himself and how the Mizukis view him is an intentional one- when they point out him acting strange due to TC-PERGE, he says “is that how I looked?” in response. It’s largely used to build tension and sow some distrust in Ryuki in the second half of the game, to wonder just what the hell is going on with him, but that’s also part of why that scene in the cathedral was very cathartic to me. 

He’s been struggling due to his problems, the narrative has made sure to contrast what it felt like to be him vs how people are seeing him, but his problems do not mean he’s not worthy of compassion from the people around him. Date challenges him directly, reminding him (and the player) of something Ryuki himself said on his route- that no matter how many times he’s hit down, he just needs to keep rising back up. Telling him to climb above the debris is so important- other people can and will help, and they will cheer him on and support him, but he has to remember why he wanted this too. he has to fight for himself as well, and he does. For a character like Ryuki, who we know is very motivated by his past and the people he’s lost, being reminded that he can still have a future by someone he betrayed directly is very important.

(just adding this cap bc this dialogue makes me want to cry)

So honestly, the one thing I really wish we’d gotten out of the narrative after this moment is a scene where you play as Ryuki again. I understand why that didn’t happen from a development POV- it’d likely have made things additionally complicated, and the story very much was moving to be about Mizuki and Bibi’s situation. Which does make sense to me (even though i love Ryuki), Mizuki is the returning character, she’s the one I’d imagine the dev team would expect people to be a lot more attached to.

If anything, I truly wish we’d gotten to see Ryuki and Amame talking after her somnium, because I think those two can function as incredible foils to each other. They’ve been through similar things, and I think Ryuki could absolutely understand her pain. Ryuki says himself that he would kill the criminal who murdered his brother, if given the opportunity- and Amame is someone who was given that opportunity, and she took it. (I may make a separate post abt this sometime too, bc oh boy do i have thoughts about how the narrative could’ve explored these two more. Amame’s somnium on Ryuki’s side is absolutely loaded with painful questions for him. Uchikoshi i am begging you for a dlc-)

But back on topic, I think that having one more scene where you play as Ryuki on the true end route really could’ve further strengthened this effect. Finally getting to see things from his perspective at a point in time where he’s struggled and suffered but explicitly has the support of his friends and coworkers- I think that would’ve been a very good opportunity, and I truly do hope that may be something that could be explored further later. It would’ve put a nice bow on things to get to see his feelings on things from his perspective, knowing that it doesn’t have to be just him and Tama anymore.

Anyways if you read all of this: thank you for reading, don’t feel like you need to take any of this too seriously lol, but I’d be curious to know what other people think on the subject! I really really liked looking at how the game presents both sides of its story, and I think narratives presented out of order like AI:NI was often give potential for extremely fun storytelling. 

The compassion the game ultimately has for Ryuki made me very happy, he suffers and struggles but he continues to fight to move forwards because he is so very human. It all ties back to that core theme of love- to have compassion for himself, and for him to accept the love of the people who want to see him succeed and get better. He has problems, they aren’t going to just go away, but he deserves the support and the friendship of people around him. He can climb above it when he finally accepts that he is not alone.

#kuruto ryuki #ryuki kuruto #aini #aini spoilers #nirvana initiative #nirvana initiative spoilers #aitsf #aitsf spoilers #this got. a lot longer than i intended #but i guess i did indeed have a lot to say on the subject lol #its something i care abt a lot!! its important to me #i hope it is at least easy to follow my thoughts slkdfjgsdfg #i just think they did something Really neat with the story structure #that you wouldn't be able to pull off if things had been set up differently #i Do still wish we saw more of him on mizuki's route yes #but like... look at my blog name of course i feel that way lmao #and i know there's a good chance there will Never be dlc and the menu was just a placeholder #but i will hold onto hope. i think this story deserves it #mizuki's stuff wrapped up v well imo #but i think there's a lot you Could still explore with ryuki #his relationships to certain characters and things you learn in endgame #the game itself is v satisfying to me but i love these characters so much? #it'd be like getting a nice dessert after a full course meal #but anyways thank u for reading again lol #adhd brain truly go brrrr #i love seeing disabled characters in fiction. makes me happy.

[idkhowtopickausername]

Are you still doing the unpopular opinions meme? 🔥 Naruto leftist discourse (and a precision: since Naruto Tumblr is the home of Naruto fans criticizing the Shinobi System and the narrative and so a huge chunk of the critique of the show on here is centered on those aspects, do you think people sometimes go too far and take it too seriously or don't take it seriously enough, etc.)

Hi! Yeah I’m still doing the ask game!

Yeah I do think there are times I see people taking it too seriously and people not taking it seriously enough. I think it’s good and important to be able to see how the stuff the show frames positively re: the shinobi system is really fucked up and to be able to see that Sasuke’s perspective is fundamentally correct despite him being vilified, and to be able to see that the ideas of morality that are being presented are very hypocritical and at times pretty awful. And when people who are actively engaged in Naruto discourse on here choose to dismiss or make fun of that analysis it does bother me, because I know they’ve had it explained to them and still refuse to see it.

That being said when it comes to the fandom on Tumblr it matters much more to me that people understand the problems with the show’s messaging than that they like the same characters/ships as me, and while there’s some characters that I don’t really see the appeal of and somewhat distrust the opinions of most of their fans, and vice versa characters I love and distrust the opinions of people who dislike them, I care more that people generally understand why the show’s messaging around genocide and its condemnation of the use of violence to resist a violent system are bad. I think getting super vitriolic towards people based on their subjective feelings about characters or ships is a bit embarrassing to witness. And similarly getting really vitriolic over people like not taking things seriously enough because they ship [x] or whatever or have some minorly flawed take, and claiming that they’re inherently selfish and morally depraved or something because of that is like kind of absurd to me lol, like it’s genuinely not that deep.

Also when people compare in-universe events to actual real-life atrocities it’s taking it a bit too far imo. I also think that while there are definitely connections between people’s opinions on fiction and their politics, and fiction is inherently political, you can’t reliably extrapolate people’s irl politics from their opinions about Naruto like I know people who are definitely leftists who I think have mundanely bad naruto opinions bc they’ve just never thought that deeply about it until I talked to them, and I’ve run into a couple of people on here who were Sasuke stans but turned out to be politically conservative, like there’s no clear line you can draw and it’s a bit weird to think that way imo. Also when people like to claim that Sasuke stans are like using Naruto discourse as a substitute for political engagement it’s hilarious lol like why don’t you think people can have hobbies like talking about fiction they like and also be politically engaged irl, they’re not mutually exclusive.

I think the reason leftists are drawn to analyze Naruto this way is partly because it illustrates really well the hypocrisy of systems that are inherently violent but treat resistance towards the status quo as the only real form of violence, and also illustrates how a militarized profit-based system affects lots of characters in different ways on a personal level. And I think Sasuke does develop a (flawed but still powerful) revolutionary ideology over the course of the story, and he has a big pivotal role in the story, and that resonates with a lot of people, myself included. He’s also a really complex and sympathetic character imo who manages to both feel very real and human and grow and change in meaningful ways (e.g. not just be the mouthpiece for a certain political viewpoint) and also opposes the dominant system at the same time.

#ask

[chewycrunchytgirl]

hello tumblr user crunchytgirl, quick question: what's your favourite namari hime song(s)??

Hello leek, thank you for asking, it’s a complicated question to answer because there are so many good ones, but I can sort by which ones I like the most for different reasons

The song that first got me into nyanyannya as an artist outside of just pjsekai was Club=Majesty, and that’s one of my favorites in part because out of any song ever produced, that one had the biggest mental impact on me in interpreting its message. It hit even harder in a humorous way because of the fact that I was actually in a hotel room on the Las Vegas strip when I listened to it, already in the belly of the beast, so to speak, and the ideal of opulence at the cost of others sang about in Club=Majesty was surrounding me, and that I think me beginning to feel disillusioned, or even disgusted with the luxury I was currently experiencing (I was on vacation) was the first real rift in thinking to form between myself and my father, and led in part to my mental independence.

Sister=Sect Rouge was also pretty influential, and holds a special place for me, in the fact that that is actually the song that convinced me to come out to my best friend about wanting to transition and become a woman. I had long realized that things didn’t feel right as I currently was, but I had been of the mind that doing so would make me a flawed, defective woman unless I worked really really hard, and I had no use trying to justify (Justin⟹Jive⟹Justify reference!?) any extra work for myself, instead opting to feel the pain I know rather than the one I don’t. That all changed one fateful night when I had a dream and met one single, incredible character. Transmasc Sister=Sect Rouge. In he walked with such incredible confidence my girlfriend in the dream immediately broke up with me to go with him. He walked and spoke with an otherworldly swagger and influence. But the most important part? There was almost nothing different. He wore the same outfit, if a bit more minimalist, had the same voice, did the same things, overall the same except for a clear masculine presence that only existed in the realm of thought. And that made me realize that I think it didn’t really matter if I passed, or if I had a feminine voice, or if I dressed femininely, it only mattered that I had the confidence to simply be a woman. That was the catalyst that led to me coming out and starting my journey, and I have had so much joy since. Also the song is a banger and speaks to my previous experiences and critiques with religion when I was a kid.

I also have kind of a sleeper pick, in that I’m a big fan of Noel de Figaro. In the music you can hear how it resembles Noel’s part in El Tango Egoista and in that latter song hear his part break over time and melt into Sister=Sect Rouge’s part, and I think that’s neat. But more than that, Noel is one of only two characters in my life that I have ever truly kinned, and this song is the primary reason why. The whole song is about how truth and sincerity are the only things that matter, told through a somewhat condescending tone, perhaps, and if that were all it would make it one of the weaker songs on nyanyannya’s list, if not for the implications caused by what else we know about his character. Noel de Figaro is an alias. This man is lying as he preaches truth. He is failing as he preaches resilience. He is shrinking away as he preaches confidence. He is the contradictory spirit that posesses my own words and actions, and I think of him every time I think about how “the only true talent is endurance and willingness to practice” and then not practice at that thing, or when I say “austerity breeds power” and then I seriously overcomplicate whatever the thing is. I try my best every day to overcome these flaws, and I know he probably is too. Noel Beutel is my favorite Namari Hime character by far, and I feel conflicted after I realize that he’s probably one of the few who is dead. I think about his journey daily and I am spurred to keep living my life by the fact that I would want him to.

I’m also a big fan of Asu wa Subarashi, an old nyanyannya title featuring Kagamine Len before the Namari Hime series really took shape, and for the problems that song may have it makes me cry without fail every time I even think about it for too long.

Also for reference’s sake I have not read the nyanyannya light novels, and I joined the fandom around the time Kirapipi Kirapika released, so about 8 months ago.

I’ve also been trying to find the Kadoh-anna-ruk-ah Cyanotype album in disc form for a really really long time so if anyone has any leads on that please DM me

I’ve also been listening to Peacemaker on repeat lately

Sorry for the long response, I haven’t had anyone to talk to about this in a while

Oh also EDIT: fun fact I actually saw the Cyanotype album in a dream several months before I found out it exists! I had to prevent myself from spending all of my money on it, just like in real life :3

#asks #namari hime #long post

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball GT 48

✨GT Stands For Guilt Trip✨

Well, we finally made it to the home stretch.  This is the Shadow Dragons Saga, the last arc in Dragon Ball GT.  And it’s pretty fucking terrible, let’s make that clear up front.  I was willing to be diplomatic about GT when I started.  I was prepared to wade through the nonsense of the early episodes, and I let my interest in Tuffle lore keep me engaged with the Baby Saga, and I barely remembered the Super 17 Saga, so I powered through that one by sheer curiosity. 

But the Shadow Dragons Saga sucks ass.  I say this with zero respect to anyone who worked on this anime.  This arc is like watching an oil spill happen.  This arc is like the time I found a dead bird in the vent duct of my dryer.   I’d rather go to the dentist than watch this crap, because at least it wouldn’t take as long.

I’ll be honest with you, dear reader, liveblogging GT has really worn me down.  I wanted to cover this one for the sake of completion, and so I could have a handy reference to each episode in the future, and I also thought it could be a lot of fun to critique the show in a playful sort of way.  But I didn’t take into account just how awful this show really was, or the mental toll it would take on me to spend so much time on it. 

So from here on out, I’m just gonna augur in and get this over with.  Strap yourselves in, because we’re about to see quite possibly the worst Dragon Ball saga ever made.  I’m not sure if the individual episodes are worse than the ones we’ve seen so far, but the arc as a whole is a master class in how to piss away your audience’s goodwill.

✨"Good" "Ideas", Poorly Executed✨

Oh, where do I even begin?  Okay, so when Dr. Gero opened up that portal between Hell and Earth, it caused all these disasters across the Earth, on top of the damage done by Super 17 and Gero’s allies.  Dragon Team decided to summon Shenron to wish away all the death and destruction, but the Dragon Balls were cracked, and when they called Shenron, a bunch of smoke billowed out of the Balls, and a new, shady-looking Dragon emerged. 

King Kai warned Goku that it wasn’t Shenron, but the dragon itself seemed to identify as the same Shenron that Dragon Team had used in the past.  I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy, just changed beyond recognition.  Anyway, this is sometimes referred to as “Smoke Shenron”, and he never actually does anything in this form.  He just tells the good guys that he’s not going to be their “lapdog” any more, and then he takes the Dragon Balls and splits himself into seven parts, each one taking a Dragon Ball in a different direction. 

One annoying part of this is how no one can agree on who’s going to explain this situation. King Kai starts, but then the Elder Supreme Kai cuts him off, but then he’s so furious about it that Kibitoshin has to explain it instead, and then Dende and Mr. Popo show up to add their thoughts.  So I’m just going to give you the summary without getting into who says what.

During the Majin Buu Saga, Kibitoshin heard about the Earthling’s plans to use the Dragon Balls, but he seemed to have no idea what they were.  Later, the Elder Kai caught wind of it, and expressed disapproval.  According to him, the Dragon Balls were a special dispensation to Namekians, and should only be used sparingly.  The idea of the Earth having its own set was bothersome to him, and he seemed uncomfortable about using them to undo the damage of the Buu crisis, even when he was one of the people resurrected by the wishes.  In Dragon Ball Z, it sounded like he was just objecting to the whole thing on moral grounds.

But in this episode, we learn that his warnings we based on very real, very serious dangers. Each time you use the Dragon Balls, you introduce “minus energy” into them.  This arc really lays it on thick with the terms “plus energy” and “minus energy”, so get used to that.  I guess the deal is that it takes plus energy to grant a wish, so each time the Dragon Balls get used, they lose plus and gain minus?  Fuck it, who cares?  The point is that if they get used too often, the minus energy builds up inside the Dragon Balls, until they can’t contain it anymore, and this is what led to the events of this episode.  The next time Shenron is summoned, he comes out looking all weird and instead of granting wishes, he buggers off to start destroying the world.

In theory, the Dragon Balls can safely release this pent-up minus energy after each wish, but it takes about a hundred years for that to happen.  This is why the Dragon Balls scatter after each use.  By the time anyone can find all seven of them again, centuries would have passed, and the minus energy from the previous wish would be gone. 

However, that natural cooldown period got hijacked when Bulma invented the Dragon Radar.  Thanks to her, the Dragon Balls could be gathered much more easily.   Hell, just look at the last episode.  Goku, Trunks, and Pan went to gather the Balls at the tail end of Episode 47 and it didn’t take any time at all.  So over the past forty years, they’ve been making tons and tons of wishes, and that’s overloaded the Dragon Balls.  

The danger now is that Shenron will destroy the Earth.  I think there was a line about how it’s been cut off from the rest of the universe, but I’m not sure if I interpreted it correctly.  There’s also some concern that Shenron might continue his rampage and destroy the rest of the universe as well.  So Goku resolves to hunt down Shenron and kick his ass, which will presumably restore things to normal.

Okay, so that’s the premise.  Here’s why it sucks.

1) This is just a retread of the Black Star Dragon Balls.  I’ve already explained my gripes about the BS Dragon Balls, but the short version is that there was a prototype set of Dragon Balls hidden away for centuries, and using them can destroy the whole world, and Mr. Popo knew about them the whole time and never said anything.  The BS Dragon Balls were written out of the story in Episode 40, so now we’ve returned to the classic Red Star Dragon Balls we’ve always known, and suddenly they turn out to have the same problem, where they’re too dangerous to use.  So it’s not even original.

2) Why didn’t anyone say anything about this until now? This is the worst kind of retcon, the kind where new lore is introduced that doesn’t even remotely fit into the established history.  As this episode states, the gang have been using the Dragon Balls for decades.  During that time, they met Kami, who created the Dragon Balls, and other characters like Mr. Popo, Guru, Moori, and Dende, who know a great deal about creating and maintaining Dragon Balls.  Throughout Dragon Ball and DBZ, characters will pose questions about the kinds of wishes they can make, and what rules apply, and the experts will mull it over and give clear, concise answers.  On occasion, Shenron himself will counsel the characters who summon him, explaining the limitations of his powers and making helpful suggestions for how to word their wishes.  

The point I’m making here is that the Dragon Balls are extremely user-friendly.  The hard part is gathering them all together, but once you’ve done that, there’s plenty of guidance on how to use them and what not to do. And at no point did anyone ever bring up the dangers of overuse.  And yet, when Episode 48 comes along, you have King Kai, Kibitoshin, the Elder Kai, and Mr. Popo all going “Yeah, you assholes blew it.  You shouldn’t have used them so much.”  

3) If the Dragon Balls need 100 years to reset, then why do they work the way they do?  From the start, the Dragon Balls turn into stone for a year, after which they change back into orange crystal orbs and they can be used again.  This was written into the story to explain why the characters can’t just constantly re-gather the Dragon Balls for continuous wishing.  But it’s implied that this is a cooldown period to reset them for the next use.  This is further clarified when Dende reactivates the Dragon Balls in the Cell Saga.  They ask him to upgrade the Dragon Balls to grant three wishes instead of just one, and he can do it, but it means adjusting the “wishing power”.  Shenron can’t be made to grant 800 wishes in one go, because there’s a limit to what he can do in one summoning.  Porunga seems to have far greater capacity than Shenron, which is why he can resurrect people multiple times, restore whole planets, and always grant three wishes every 130 days.  But I assume this is because he’s built different.  

So there’s already a lot of logistical considerations built into the Dragon Ball concept.  And yet this episode suggests that the 1-year cooldown is only one percent of the time the Dragon Balls actually need to reset.  If that were true, then why didn’t Kami or Dende fix it so they turn to stone for 100 years instead of just one? 

Also, this episode mentions how Dende upgraded the Dragon Balls to grant more wishes, which only compounded the problem.  Well if Dende knew that was an issue, why the hell did he do it? And if he didn’t know, then how is he qualified to make and maintain Dragon Balls in the first place?  Dende doesn’t have much to say in this episode, which doesn’t make any fucking sense, because he should know more about Dragon Balls than anyone else in the show.  He’s a Dragon Type Namekian!  He literally studied the art of making Dragon Balls!  That’s why they recruited him to become the new Kami of Earth!  Moori said all of this when he recommended Dende to Goku! 

It really, really annoys me how this series keeps deferring to Mr. Popo for all of the Dragon Ball lore.  Popo is an attendant to the reigning Kami of Earth.  He’s not a Namekian, and everything he knows about Namekian culture and Dragon Balls, he learned from Kami, a Namekian.  Dende is a Namekian.  Everything he learned about Namekian culture and Dragong Balls, he learned on Namek.  He knew all about this stuff before he came to Earth, and then he kept studying it afterward.  And unlike Kami, Dende didn’t lose his memories of his people. 

If this Shadow Dragon nonsense made any sense at all, then Dende should be the one explaining it to the others.  Instead, they’re all explaining it to him, like he’s some idiot who never knew how any of this worked.

Seriously, how the fuck would Mr. Popo know about an evil dragon destroying another planet?  He’s never left Earth.  What would he know about any of this? I could see Dende reading about something like this in some book of Namekian legends, but not Popo.  Hey, speaking of Dende...

4) Why don’t they just kill Dende?  Everyone talks about this Shenron problem like it’s irreversible, but Shenron’s not invincible.  King Piccolo killed him with a ki blast, and he’s a weakling compared to most of the characters in this show.  But even if Shenron got stronger from all this minus energy, and killing Shenron isn’t an option, then why don’t they just kill Dende? 

This has always been the way it works.  When Nappa killed Piccolo, Kami died too, and the Dragon Balls were deactivated.  When Guru died, the Namekian Dragon Balls were deactivated.  When Kami and Piccolo fused into one, the Earth’s Dragon Balls were deactivated.  According to GT, their fusion somehow reactivated the Black Star Dragon Balls, which is why Piccolo allowed himself to die in Episode 40, so they would never endanger anyone again.  So it’s clear that the people making GT understood this concept. 

Well then, the Earth’s Dragon Balls are under the stewardship of Dende now, so if he dies, they should stop working.  This was a major plot point in the Buu Saga, where they needed to keep Dende alive in order to wish everyone back to life after Buu was defeated.  Kill Dende, kill Shenron. 

I’m not saying they should have actually gone through with this, but why doesn’t anyone bring it up?  Or, a more humane option would be to break that sculpture of Shenron that Mr. Popo made.  I’m pretty sure Kami and Dende always had the power to turn Shenron off when it suited their purposes.  We never saw that put into practice, but the pecking order was always very clear.  Shenron is not a “god” or a “mysterious legend”.  He’s a magic familiar under the control of Dende.  Shenron can’t do shit without Dende to allow it. 

5) What about the Namekian Dragon Balls?  If this is a problem on Earth, then why has it never been an issue on Namek, where the Dragon Balls can be used much more frequently?  Do they just know how to avoid the problem, or do they wait 100 years between wishes?  I ask this because we’ve seen Porunga grant a dozen wishes in about as many years.  Oh, and in GT, they used Porunga again to restore the Earth after it exploded in Episode 40.  So the Namekian Dragon Balls have been overused at least as badly as the Earth’s Dragon Balls.  So where’s their Shadow Dragon problem? 

But maybe I’m being too hard on this story.  Yeah, there’s a lot of plot holes to this, but ultimately it comes down to a pretty cool angle.  The final boss of Dragon Ball is the Dragon himself.  Goku has to fight the Dragon to save the universe, and the Dragon has split into seven, which means Goku has to throw down with seven badass monsters, like some kind of awesome fantasy martial arts gauntlet.  Right?

Right?

You’re shaking your head, are you saying that the Shadow Dragons are not badass monsters?  Well that can’t be right, I’m sure that.... Oh.  Oh.

6) The Shadow Dragons suck ass.   Goku tracks down the first one and he looks like a joke.  Then a rock falls on his toe and he cries out in pain, revealing that he doesn’t just look like a joke, he is a joke.

This is played off like some sort of “appearances can be deceiving” trope, where the moral is not to underestimate your foe.   But that’s really not what this series needed at this stage.  You kind of knew that the Shadow Dragons would get increasingly difficult with each one, so the very first one would be the weakest, but this is ridiculous.  By the end, the last three give Super Saiyan 4 Goku a hard time, but the first four Shadow Dragons are total chumps.  They play their tricks and give Goku some trouble, but not because of any physical strength they possess.  And then you finally get to the “serious” Dragons at the end, and the fights suck, because GT is terrible at presenting fight scenes.

And this is what makes the arc so damned infuriating.  The Saiyans Saga from Z worked because it opened with a devastating conflict--Goku dies, for goodness’ sake!-- and then it promises an even more terrible enemy will appear in one year.  So the heroes train and the story winds on and the arc relies on this suspense.  What are the two Saiyans going to do when they get here?  How strong could they be?   Can anything stop them?  Then they finally arrive and the first thing they do is destroy a whole city.   The second thing they do is kill several major characters.  After it’s over, Goku spends the next several episodes in the hospital, because Vegeta broke every bone in his body!  The Saiyans Saga did not fuck around, and the reason it’s such a classic is that it delivered on the hype.

The Shadow Dragons Saga is the polar opposite to this.  This arc opens with dire warnings about seven monsters who will surely destroy the whole world, and it blunders the execution in every possible way.  The last Shadow Dragon is the only one that really matters, and he throws a clock at Goku, just to give you an idea of how “intense” that battle is.   You watch this garbage hoping that each new Shadow Dragon will redeem the disappointments that came before, and then you finally look up and notice that there are no more.   All of the Shadow Dragons came and went, and they all sucked. 

✨Positivity Page✨

There was a montage of all the wishes made over the years, so I guess that was pretty nice.  I’ll be honest, it’s gonna be really hard to find anything nice to say about these next few episodes. 

✨Is This Episode Worse than "The Roaming Lake"?✨

Yes.  It is worse.  The Roaming Lake is pretty much guaranteed to make a clean sweep of this thing.  All hope is lost.

One major problem with this episode is that very little actually gets done.  Most of the runtime is spent infodumping the Shadow Dragon concept, and I think I’ve already made my opinion on that very clear.  They spent a lot of time explaining the thing, but they managed to avoid every question that I had about it.

The rest of the episode shows lots of pointless scenes of Shadow Dragons flying around the world, choosing their bases of operations and selecting their powers.  One of them flies into a volcano and he’s going to be their fire guy.  That sort of thing.   Then Goku remembers he forgot the Dragon Radar, so Pan offers to let him have Giru, but only if she can tag along.  Then they find Haze Shenron, who looks like the love child of a frog and a moldy potato.

✨The Blade Braxton Memorial Haiku*✨

Yeah, this show gets worse. 

Don��t worry, though.  We still have

Plenty of Giru.

#dragon ball #dragon ball gt #really sucks #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #*haiku does not come with crown as illustrated #goku #pan #trunks #giru #dende #mr popo #chi chi #videl #haze shenron

[whoevenknowswhatimwriting]

Chapter Four

things are getting interesting! but seriously, this is my favorite chapter i've done so far. hope you enjoy, and i'm open to critique as always! please check the tw before reading!

Dare was convinced that something was wrong. At first, they’d thought it might just be time playing tricks on them, passing slower than they were used to, but something was definitely wrong.

Too much time had passed, leaving them alone with Kaya. And maybe they were being paranoid and maybe they were overreacting, but they could see the tightness growing around Kaya’s eyes too as they both edged towards where they knew Kaz and Amon to be.

It was loud, obviously, they were in the middle of a forest, but Dare could still hear whispers coming from the tent, urgent and sharp. Looks like they were right. Trouble.

They lifted the tent flap silently, peering in and seeing Kaz pinned, back against a table, by a sword at its throat. The iron glinted silver-gold in the fading light, sending reflections that contrasted against its light brown skin, pretty in the way all smiles were sharp. Its attacker had their head turned, interrogating Amon without need for a second blade.

“Nothing unusual happening in the woods? Strange noises, things going missing, anything like that?”

Oh no oh no oh no no no no no.

No.

This couldn’t be their fault, wouldn’t let it-

If this was their fault, then this soldier, all shining armor and cold iron, was here for them.

It took everything Dare had not to bolt, to stand motionless and silent, to say that if they ran they would be heard, if they ran they would be caught, stay safe stay still stay silent.

“-othing like that, no. Please, we haven’t done anything wrong, just leave, please.”

By then, Kaz had noticed them standing in the doorway. Urgency burned in its eyes, but it moved subtly, tilting its head in a clear message to run.

The assailant remained focused on Amon for a second more, studying his face calmly from beneath their helm, eyes pale and calculating under the steel. They turned back to face Kaz, head tilting suspiciously, and followed its line of sight. Directly to Dare.

Their eyes narrowed, though their lips curled up in a smile. They pressed their sword slightly deeper into Kaz’s neck, leaving a trail of red that ran down its throat and trailed onto its shirt, darkening the black fabric. Then they abruptly pulled back and pointed the blade towards Dare.

They were talking, too, though Dare couldn’t hear them, instead trying with all their might to convince themself to step back. Dare was frozen in place, feeling like the sword in the interloper’s hand might as well already be between their ribs for all the good they were doing stone-stiff and staring. They couldn’t do anything, why hadn’t they brought a knife, there were plenty back in the tent, what were they thinking, didn’t they have any self-preservation instincts?

When they finally reached Dare, though, instead of the bite of the blade, they felt a hand grip them roughly by one of their horns and tilt their head down, face to face. Making sure they were what they were looking for..

Dare couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, just stood there stock-still and unbalanced.

And then Kaya stabbed their attacker in the arm.

It looked like it hurt. Would hurt, for a while, even after it healed as much as it was going to. They might lose some movement in their hand.

Good.

Either way, the too-soft leather of the aggressor gave way to the cool gray stone of the blade, almost the exact same tone as Dare’s skin before the blood dribbled out, red as iron rain. They dropped their sword, and Dare finally managed to force themself to do something.

Crouch down, grab the sword, and point. They won’t care how much your hands are shaking when the blade is at their throat instead.

“Sit down.” Kaya’s voice was the first thing that broke through the noise in Dare’s head, and at first, they thought she was talking to them. But of course, she wasn’t, and the soldier… knight…? Whoever they were, they were sent by Ca- a lord, they were sent by a lord, and they’d lowered themself down to the ground slowly, fingers tangling through the grass where they rested.

“Take off your helm, hands where we can see them. No sudden movements.”

As they set their helmet on the ground beside them, responding to the order, Dare glanced behind them. Amon was checking Kaz over for severe injury, looking panicked and relieved all at once somehow.

Kaya had come to stand beside them, resting her hand between their shoulder blades gently. They could pull away at any time if they wanted to. They didn’t.

They stood still as she spoke to them, saying, “I’ll go get some rope. And,” she turned her head to Amon, “maybe some dressing and bandages?” At his nod, she walked off, fast and steady. Determined.

Just like Dare was to stay put. Look at them, watch for danger, but don’t make eye contact.

They’re looking at you.

Dare stared back at them, stone-faced as a knife blade, and said, “Don’t move.” They hoped their white-knuckled grip was more subtle than they thought, along with the fact that they didn’t know how to hold a sword. It was both hands for a broadsword, right? Was this even a broadsword? Either way, it was heavy.

Focus on something else. Put this adrenaline to good use, if you can. Assess the threat.

The attacker, prisoner now, was no longer trying to make eye contact, instead staring off in the distance, seemingly behind Dare. Very little of the armor they wore was made of metal, just their breastplate and some light guards on their arms and legs. It was iron, like their sword, blade dangerously close to Dare’s hand. Their fingers were starting to itch.

Dare could hear footsteps, the soft, confident tread of someone meant to be there. Kaya.

When she reached the group, she calmly ordered, “Armor off. Boots too, don’t want you hiding knives. After that, put your hands behind your back. Stay where I can see you.” She kept the rope and her small stone knife, but handed over the rest of what she’d gotten to Amon.

He was worried, Dare could tell. But it was the kind of worry that spoke of minor mishaps in the future and time spent working, not anything that could shatter him. 

Kaya had tied up the assailant and had one hand holding on to where theirs were tied. Dare set down their sword, tip sinking into the ground with a crunch. They were too tired to keep hold of it, and it was far enough away to be safe. Probably. They should keep an eye on it, so if something went wrong, they’d know.. Dare sighed, and rested their hand on the pommel.

It burned.

Not like fire or ice, but the way tears burn in the back of your eyes when you’re trying so, so hard not to cry.

Dare yanked their hand back, gray skin already cracked open and gory red from the iron, then wiped the blood on the extra shirt they’d been given while Kaz worked. It faded into the black quietly. Something to deal with later.

For now, they had a decision to make.

#tw gore #tw blood #tw injury #tw sharp things #tw: sharp objects #tw burns #writeblr #writing #writer stuff #writers on tumblr #writing community #writers and poets #writerscommunity #my ocs #ocs #original character #oc: dare #oc: amon #oc #oc: kaz #oc: kaya #oc: the mysterious loser #oc: the terrible weight of my own writing decisions

[mumpsetc]

Ok i will challenge you takes I think they lack an important need to level with the media at hand and realize that, while these shows of course are not flawless and not above critique, they are in fact still innocent youtube children's animated cartoons. It's a kind of paranoid reading that's cherry picking evidence to say that the show is queer baiting while not acknowledging things like how it's pretty clear that Bot's still going through an arc of self discovery and finding themself and they probably picked traits up from Paintbrush supported them through said journey to a point where they even refused to vote with their alliance to get PB eliminated, or the fact that both PB and Bot have Nonbinary voice actors. Taking in the full picture is incredibly important before accusing writing to be done in bad faith and something i wish far more people took into consideration, or the very least admitted to before talking so brazenly. I could go on but im pretty sure ask boxes have a character limit that im going to hit soon.

For Starters THANK You for Actually Sending a Response. I Didn't Think You Would. Anyways, Calling ii a "Simple Animated Children's Show" Dismisses the Fact It Is Written By Grown Men Who Do Deserve to Have Their Writing Critiqued, Which I Am Doing in My Own Space. I Am Not Tracking Down TimmyEpic14 and Making Him Read Me Calling YinYang Shit.

Bot is Going Through an Arc of Self Discovery Yes, But They Don't Really Have a Relationship With Paintbrush and Your Reading Here is Just as Much "Cherrypicking" as What I Do But In the Opposite Direction. We Have ONE Episode Where They Show Any Real Kinship and the Rest is Surface Level Exchanges Because Paintbrush is Swiftly Eliminated the Second Bot is Nonbinary. Also, Perhaps The Show Isn't Queerbaiting, Perhaps Its Only Putting Several Close M/M or F/F Relationships in the Series Only to Canonize Fantube Instead First On Complete Accident! Also I Do Not Care About Nonbinary Voice Actors When Its Very Clear No Nonbinary People Have Actually Been Consulted for the Writing Which is What Matters, Esp Since, if We Want to Play That Card, Neither Character Had Nonbinary Voice Actors Originally, a Thing They Had Several Years to Implement if They Were Doing So Out of the Goodness of Their Heart and Not Necessity.

Finally, You Say I Have to "Take In the Full Picture" But Refuse to Do the Same With My Criticism, Focusing in on My Bot and Queerbaiting Statements and Ignoring My Numerous Points About ii's Misogyny, Ableism, Mishandling of Colonization, ETC.

You Don't Have to Agree With My Points. Block Me if You Think I'm Full of Shit, I Probably Am, But I'm Also Having Fun and Truly Isn't That What It's All About <3

#Thanks for Stopping By Anon! #Dreamy.txt #Drugs

[agenderakali]

The LBGT rep in League of Legends seems interesting so far!

If you had any critiques on how the rep as a whole is being portrayed, which would they be?

Sorry if this seems like too much of a hassle, you just piqued my interest, is all 😆

Oh I have SO many things to say about the LGBT representation in League, I love to talk about it. So, league started out as a very cishetereo, misogynist IP and a lot of that unfortunately shows to this day. A lot of the old designs are crappy and misogynistic, the fanbase is toxic. But over time devs have been updating their designs, lore, stories, and characters and in doing so have introduced more LGBT characters into the universe.

This pretty much started with Caitlynn and Vi all the way back in 2012. They were originally billed as the "good cop bad cop" duo from Piltover. Vi's short hair and their close working relationship got a lot of people speculating on Vi being a lesbian and them being more than business partners. Devs hinted at characters being queer, and the (predominantly cishet man) fanbase made homophobic jokes and memes about queer coded characters. Jokes, speculation, and hints from developers was all there was when it came to LGBT rep. That changed when Varus got his lore update in 2017, when they decided to totally retcon his old lore and say he is not some guy, actually is a gay couple that gave up their mortal forms to exist in the body of a darkin (?? kinda weird and complicated lore) but shortly after that, Neeko was revealed. Who was League's first openly gay champion. She had voice lines flirting with women and showing no interest in men. Beyond her sexuality though, she's just got a very funny and adorable personality and her interest in women isnt sexualized for the mostly male audience. She was very well received despite some bigoted gamers bitching.

After that more and more champions were introduced as queer or confrimed that way. Rell was introduced as openly bisexual, K'sante was openly gay, Leona and Diana got a story where they kissed and were confirmed as lovers. Arcane confirmed Vi and Caitlynn being a couple. The amount of queer content is kind of sparing since their games arent rlly story focused and only offer characterization through brief voice lines. So... to be clear its kind of just representation crumbs. But I take them anyways dfkjgh. I think at least, one of the best things they did recently was confirm Graves as a gay man, his "work" partner Twisted Fate as bisexual, and wrote a story about their burgeoning romantic interest in eachother. Many of the queer characters league introduced were new, and some ended up neglected in the vast roster of characters. League has also avoided representation of gay male characters, probably to try to avoid displeasing their mostly straight male audience. Graves and Twisted Fate however, are very established & beloved characters in league, with a complicated history with eachother that started all the way back in 2011. For many years people joked about them "bickering like an old married couple" and in a pride event they officially confirmed it... I think it was very well done and meaningful to see and I really, really hope they further explore it in future cinematics/stories with these two. I really hope it doesn't end up being confined to this one story.

All of that said, though, League's major flaw in their representation is the lack of rep for trans people. The first attempt at a trans character in League was Taliyah. Her creator revealed that they intended for her storyline to involve her experience being a trans girl, but that part of her story was cut by higher ups. Taliyah is pretty much universally accepted as being trans by the community, but the studio did tell designers to keep it on the downlow, which is bullshit. She's been left out of league's pride events and I really hope they remedy that soon.

This post is getting way long I'm sorry but I CANT go without mentioning their other trans character from Legends of Runeterra, the card game they released based of league of legends. LoR actually has more queer representation than any league media, and builds out the world a LOT, through LoR we got confirmation about established character like Miss Fortune and Nami being queer themselves. And most notably, we have a surprisingly amazing representation of a trans character.

Tyari, the Traveler starts off going by he/him, and is starting a journey up the mountain of Targon. It's a treacherous climb but if you make it to the top, you could become an ascended being, basically. So throughout the game, cards of their friends and the people around them have lines support their journey and encouraging them.

When they reach the top, Tyari becomes the Traveler, a goddess-like being with a more feminine voice and appearance. You realize that the journey up the mountain is used as an allegory for her transition, and it throws those interactions with Taric in a whole new light. She is also voiced by trans voice actress Maddie Taylor.

I literally cannot listen to these lines between Tyari and her future self without tearing up. I don't know HOW a league of legends card game managed to put together a decent trans storyline but it guts me.

Tyari is a very beloved character from the card game, many fans want to see more of her in any future league media. (me included, oh my god)

SORRY that was a lot but uh. Tl;dr League representation is hit and miss, they really need to do better and give more representation towards trans people. the only representation outside of Arcane is like. Voice lines and short stories published on their website so I hope they'll creature more in depth queer storylines in future seasons of Arcane, future shows/movies, and their upcoming games around the League IP.

#league of legends #SORRY i infodumped everywhere #I could go on even more about the positives and negatives of it theres just. so many characters so much lore X_X