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irregularjohnnywiggins · 11 months

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Something I've been considering recently: the big storytelling difference between Hideo Kojima and Yoko Taro.

There's an obvious reason I've been thinking about this, I feel: both these guys are, on the surface, exceedingly similar. They're both well-known Japanese video game creators*, they're both known for their eccentricities, they both tell stories that run the razor-thin line between 'Violence is corrupting and immoral' and 'Okay, but that bit of violence was pretty sick, right?' really well, as well as throwing in some really funny 'Hey, what the fuck did I just watch?' energy, hell they even both had a game in their series directed by Platinum Games, I don't especially think this is an overreach, here.

But they are different creators, and I've been thinking about their differences (specifically in storytelling - obviously one makes Action-RPGs and one makes Stealth Games and Baby Postman Simulators) as I play MGS3 and Nier Replicant, and I think I've come down to this: it's in how they condemn violence, and especially war.

Kojima bases all of his stories in reality - a heightened reality, perhaps, but there's a reason multiple MGS games end with long lists of dates and events, Kojima's made-up ones slipped in-between the actual history. Kojima bases his critiques on things that are real and tangible - MGS3 itself, more than any bee-wielding supervillain or photosynthetic sniper, is about the Cold War, and it's no accident that the Boss' speech at the end isn't about the Philosophers, or Volgin, or Metal Gear (METAL GEAR?) it's about soldiers, their fates and their traumas. Kojima lives in the world of... not exactly reality, but allegory-through-reality, and it makes his games pretty explicit in their messaging - which in my mind is a good thing, because it means that people who fundamentally misunderstand MGS aren't just wrong, they're obviously wrong - show me an MGS fan who thinks they're pro-America and pro-military, and I'll show you someone who did not pay attention to MGS.

Yoko Taro, on the other hand, is entirely a creature of allegory. Yoko himself has said in interviews that he tells stories primarily as a way to get people to feel something, and all other things like connections to the other games or even internal consistency comes as a secondary concern (as someone who's tried multiple times to tie everything Drakenier related together - that's believable.) As an inevitable result of this, his stories aren't really 1:1 parallels to history or the modern day, they're very general conflicts that speak to a wide range of topics.

Put it this way: in MGS4, Kojima describes in great detail a situation that is the natural endpoint of the geo-political situation (especially re: America) during most of the early 21st Century, especially The War on Terror - instead of war being a means of obtaining resources to generate income for big corporations, now war is the means of income, and all the inherent flaws of American late-stage capitalism have been applied to it - to the point that soldiers have to pay extra to use someone else's gun. It's a heightened, at times absurd version of reality, but it focuses on specific issues and flaws with the subject matter - The War on Terror, and through them highlights issues with our current world - hell, Kojima may have predicted some of the issue we currently face with capitalism.

In Nier Automata, however, Yoko doesn't present an exaggeration of a real-world conflict to portray it's flaws and its hopelessness. Instead, he constructs an entirely hopeless war, a war that is literally pointless on every side, and explores how people react to that. As opposed to Kojima's slight exaggeration of the War on Terror, by the end of Automata Yoko has presented a proxy war fought on behalf of two races that died off millennia ago, between two groups that are, at their core, exactly the same, made from the same components, fought on one side because of a poorly worded instruction from their creators that necessitates eternal total war as a basic fact of their evolutionary cycle but also inevitably results in their evolutions being violently purged because any form of passivity is betrayal, and on the other as a grand Machiavellian scheme to kill off their own troops, thereby concealing the deaths of their creators – a scheme, it’s worth noting, conceived of by an android that no longer remembers conceiving it, because his own scheme necessitates his constant assassination by the person he cares about the most to prevent him from discovering his own plan. Kojima's wars in MGS4 are absurd and pointless for us because we know what the results of the War on Terror were, Yoko's war in Automata is kinda like an onion - every layer you peel back on it, you discover a new way that it's pointless, and every time you do, you're crying a little bit more.

So, wrapping this up before people realise I just used the ultimate cliche of poorly-worded food metaphors, if you were to ask me what the big difference between Yoko Taro and Hideo Kojima was... well, I'd still go with the gameplay genres, but I'd also say that it's a slight, but really interesting, difference in how they go about their metaphors. As for which is better... neither, obviously. They're both really talented creators, this is just a style thing. You seriously expect me to choose between a series that includes 'a man pretended to be possessed by the ghost of his crush's son because he grafted his arm onto him and everyone bought it' and a series that includes 'at some point the Earth stopped spinning. This has never been explained in any of the games'? What are you, a cop?

*albeit if Yoko ever heard someone compare him to Kojima he'd probably simultaneously die of embarrassment and make a joke about being a younger, hotter Kojima.

#yoko taro #hideo kojima #drakenier #metal gear #metal gear solid #nier #I have to admit my own western biases:#it was extremely weird calling Yoko Taro 'Yoko' through all of this #but one of the things I still retain from my essay-writing days at uni is that it's really weird to call one author by their last name #and another by their first name #so since I was calling him 'Kojima'...#also I'm sorry if this is semi-incomprehensible #it's kinda stream of conscious as I thought of stuff #hence also why I didn't mention why the WWII parallels with Automata counted as a Kojima-style allegory #(and also why I have not come up with a fancy word to differentiate Kojima- and Yoko-style allegories)#seriously I planned out an entire footnote on that #(along with a brief tangent on why people who say Nier Automata is fascist apologia are wrong and idiots)#(because that's a thing I discovered exists)#ah well #I'll probably go on that rant another day #I could literally talk forever about Yoko Taro games #stay tuned!

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vampirepunks · 2 months

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I really love all the DS2 theories I've seen so far but one thing I'm picking up is a lot of people expecting Higgs to still be on the same trajectory/goal set as he was in the first game and y'know....... I don't think that's the case.

The overall theme of DS2 from what we've seen so far + Kojima's comments seems to be the concept of opposites, inverses, and dualities, as though it's saying, "take the entire idea and turn it inside out and upside down." It appears to challenge the viewer to subvert whatever expectation/understanding they have based on the first game. It's eternal recurrence as seen through a mirror. The first game was themed around blue and black, this one is red and white. Connection becomes disconnection. Hope becomes despair. Age becomes youth. Repetition becomes change.

Buckle up, I've got thoughts.

(This pattern of contrasts illustrates a theory I've had since DS1 based on Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and the three-stage journey of metamorphoses--camel -> lion -> child--required to become the overman, but that'll be a separate post. If you're already familiar with the book, just know that in this context DS1 would be the camel and thus DS2 encompasses the lion.)

So, in DS1, Higgs is a hyper-fatalist obsessed with extinction. It's easy to assume that hasn't changed, that he's still dedicated to Amelie and wants to end the world... Too easy, right? Has anything Kojima has written ever been that simple?

I raise you this: In the vein of eternal recurrence, Sam becomes Cliff and Higgs becomes Amelie/Bridget... but this is not a literal retelling, rather, a metaphorical one. A dark mirror to the stories we already know.

So if the theme is opposition, what's the opposite of extinction? Creation. What's the first thing we learn about Higgs in the DS2 trailers? He's a musician now. He sings and he plays guitar. And, arguably, music is the very essence and lifeblood of creation itself, one of the very first things mankind created when our species was in its infancy. Further, Higgs uses his own umbilical cord (yes, it's an umbilical cord), as a guitar jack, channeling his ties to life, death, and his own soul in his performance, highlighting that he has an intimate connection to this core act of creativity. More about that in this post.

Now, DS1 already has a lot of themes and motifs surrounding duality, most notably the concept of chirality: two things that are each other's opposite, two hands imperfectly overlapping, two objects that act as one another's mirror. Powerful things happen when they collide--anything ranging from drug interactions to voidouts to the very birth of the universe.

If I'm reading this right, Sam is set to become the chiral counterpart to his father's tragedy and Higgs is set to become the chiral counterpart to the extinction entity. The same narratives we know, recurring once more, but flipped to become something entirely new at the same time. A rope that becomes a stick and a stick that becomes a rope. Humanity will always need both; the stick is not evil for serving its purpose, nor is the rope inherently good for doing its job. "Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil."

I'm calling it now: Higgs is not serving Amelie, not seeking to bring her back, not trying to become her. He is rebelling against the idea of her, unshackling himself from the role she placed him in, taking back the autonomy he lost and acting to avenge the abandonment and manipulation he suffered. He's claiming her image as his own to make a mockery of what she represents, painting himself up to look like her decaying corpse, all in an effort to prove she no longer controls him, defiantly asserting, "The queen is dead... long live the king." And so, what is there left for him to do but throw himself into reckless acts of creation? Life from death. Extinction Entity? Cute. Try this on for size: Creation Entity.

#justice for my boy <3 #finally using the jokes i've been making in a serious post aha #i don't however expect this to work out for Higgs the way he plans/hopes #he thirsts and starves for connection but the divine is inherently disconnected. detached. distant.#to become a god is to be alone above the world. singular and unmatched. midas still can't shake hands no matter how beautiful his garden is #the higher they rise the harder they fall. i just hope sam is there to catch him when he does. just as he caught amelie at the end of DS1 #what was icarus when the sea embraced him if not more human than ever before?#i also really need to make a post about sam as sisyphus and higgs as prometheus. both trapped in a neverending cycle #higgs monaghan #death stranding #ds2 #ds2 theories #logan.txt

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lookismstuff · 2 months

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Highlights of Eps 489-491

SPOILER ALERT

Soojin Kim (the sister) told Jewoo Park (the leader of Cheonliang Fam) that Vin went to attack the shaman Shinmyeong Cheon because of what she told him regarding his mother.

The Cheonliang Fam rushed to save Vin (or prevent him from killing), but actually only Vin managed to even get inside Shinmyeong's residence and did some minor damage.

Vin told them that he had to do this for his mother, whom the shaman killed, or else he wouldn't be able to live with himself.

The shaman's men, particularly the yakshas and the Gwang Yoo trio whom Shinmyeong hired, were stronger than them.

Even though Vin managed to surprise Beolgu Lee, who suspected the teenager's lineage as Mujin's son, he was still no match for Beolgu.

Just as the kids were cornered (Mary even had to carry Vin on her back), Seongji came and saved them. They ran away, but followed by Beolgu, Gwang, and Jaesu Noh.

Apparently Seongji got there after Soojin told him what happened, and Seongji burned down his house, then decided to face Shinmyeong once and for all, even if he had to die.

The Kojima brothers were overwhelmed by Seongji's actual strength, and Shinmyeong was worried.

Especially since the young King of Cheonliang told him that he wasn't actually indebted to the two yakshas, or the Gwijeon Brothers (Ghost Legend) as Gabryong and Baekho used to call them. Yes, Seongji's actual teacher was none other than Mujin Jin: Vin's father.

Then, supposedly delegated by Charles Choi to help Shinmyeong "clean" the mess, James Lee arrived at the scene.

To Shinmyeong's annoyance, James came instead of Gun. Additionally, instead of fighting Seongji right away, young James offered Seongji a position as the manager of the budding four crews: someone who was better than "the two people I got first" (was James referring to Gun and Goo?). And was hiring a minor always in the plan from the get-go, yet James was willing to hire Seongji instead?

Seongji refused, and he and James dueled, each topping the other, from broken collarbone to fighting with one's hands out of one's pockets, speed against speed, strength against strength.

James saw that he and Seongji fought in a similar way: tough and powerful, with only differences in experiences.

The duel was so fiercely brutal, until in the end Seongji remembered how Mujin told him to believe in himself, literally his entire body (and his "cool" hands and feet, especially-- this is why he called Vin's eyes "cool") and won against James.

In satisfaction, Seongji reminded James that there was someone who surpassed him (and that person was Seongji).

We saw that the jacket Seongji tied around his hip was Mujin's all along, just like the daenggi (ribbon) of Vin's mother was also Mujin's.

#lookism #lookism webtoon #lookism manhwa #vin jin #jin hobin #seongji yuk #yook seongji #king of cheonliang #soojin kim #jewoo park #mary kim #kim miru #cheonliang arc #cheonliang fam #lookism 489 #lookism 490 #lookism 491

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sailorsenshishitposter · 2 months

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Otacon x Reader

Warning

Highly cursed at the halfway point. Spoilers for End of Evangelion and I wouldn't recommend that sane people watch it just to try to understand what the hell is going on. Yes there are parts where people turn into orange liquid followed by screams and upbeat happy music about suicide. Also do not look up the hospital scene for this movie (which it is infamous for). You have been warned.

_______________________________________

Otacon

Your smash main is Snake, you're a weeb or you fall in love easily and are used to being hurt by others.

First Date:

None. This man is busy raising a child with Snake.

Second Try:

The two of you meet on a fan board and quickly exchange numbers. Soon he invites you over to his house for a date. You asked where he lived but he said he would prefer to pick you up. You wait outside until you feel what seems to be an earthquake. You go to run but then you look into the sky. "IS THAT A GIANT ROBOT!" The "vehicle" pulls up and sure enough, Otacon is waiting for you. "Good evening. You look wonderful..." He then handed you a bouquet of flowers and you came inside.

Man, he really was an otaku. His home consisted of a bedroom that was really more like a storage space, a bathroom and a kitchen. "Make yourself comfortable, I'm going to bring some refreshments." You looked around for a spot to sit down, his room being like that one photo of Yoshihiro Togashi but notably much cleaner. The walls were stacked from the floor to the ceiling. You would have to tell your date that piracy was also an option. Most of it was just anime so you knew better than to touch it.

There was a small CRT and just about every console you could think of. Even the bad ones.At the far end of the room was a computer. You didn't really understand how that stuff worked but you figured his setup must be very expensive since all you had was Windows 95. You saw a purple creature on the desktop. "What's a bonzi buddy?

"You then noticed that Hal had come back. "I brought you a bento and some pocky. Only the best for my little waifu." He then blushed and turned the television off. "Sorry. I forgot that I was playing Policenauts on my Saturn earlier.."He then asked Alexa to play his spotify playlist which consisted of nothing but Hatsune Miku.

After you were finished eating, he took you by the hand. "Allow you to show you my prized collection." He brought you to his glass stand filled with various figures. It had a little bit of everything. Transformers, all the Gundams, some Code Geass. Even this weird one he called Zone of the Enders? "Yeah, I'm a huge fan!" He then looked around to see if the almighty Mr. Kojima was watching."

But this... This is my favorite." It was a giant build of EVA 01. "I never knew you liked Evangelion..." He then pulled out a copy of End of Evangelion. "Would you like to watch it with me? I have the renewal edition..." You gazed into his eyes and kissed him. "Wow..." He then turned on his hello kitty DVD player and inserted the disc.

The two of you started frenching during the komm susser tod sequence. You began to stroke him while the lyrics "It all returns to nothing" played. "Looks like someone's snake is solid..." He then thought to himself while the screams of those being turned into orange juice could be heard. "It's just like one of my Japanese amines!" You gave one final pull, yelling "It all CUMS TUMBLING DOWN, TUMBLING DOWN, TUMBLING DOWN"

________

Having finished, Hal shut off his VR machine. Ever since David had left him to go on a date with a woman, he hadn't felt the same. He thought back to when he asked him if love could bloom on the battlefield and then started to sob into his arm. "WHY DOES EVERYONE I LOVE LEAVE ME!?" Little did Snake know but Otacon had created a program where he could be with him in a dating sim. He would later sell it on steam and become as rich as Snake did from the fortnite cameo, bringing him into the spotlight. They would later get back together and become the ultimate power couple.

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vandelopa-x · 3 months

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Hiii guys! THEORY TIME

So um I've been thinking quite a lot about the new DS2 trailer, I rewatched it like 20 times and also the first trailer again and I wanna make a theory about the possible timeline of the second game + some other ideas in the middle. It probably won't be accurate at all cause Kojima's brain works in mysterious ways but hey, I wanna try cause I just keep thinking about it night and day.

So! The scenes in trailers aren't really in any order (duh) so I tried to figure out the timeline.

This scene. A lot of people were worried that there's no Sam here and is Fragile the one taking care of Lou? I would say that she's just babysitting. Maybe Sam had to leave for something (Go to town grab food, supplies, who knows, maybe it was all planned and someone orchestrated the whole situation so Sam would leave the base so he wouldn't be a threat.) Since Fragile is a person he trusts, he might have asked her to come by and take care of Lou. The place where Sam was cooking food in the 2nd trailer and the place from the 1st one looks similar, so I would say it's the same.

Listen, I don't know anything about little kids, so I used the internet. The measure here is in inches, and the first smallest handprint is at 18 inches. According to an article I read, newborn girls measure at around 19.4 inches, and Lou was still a fetus when she came out of the pod, so it makes sense she would be a bit smaller. The biggest mark it at 28 inches, and the same article stated that babies can grow 10 inches by their first birthday, so I would say Lou is around 1 years old when the whole attack happened. Is it relevant? Who knows.

Then we have the whole this situation. By the look of this person, and the color of the gun, it appears to be red. Who else has everything red?

Higgs' lovely cult friends in black masks. I don't think its Higgs himself, it might be someone he send, but also it could he Higgs? I don't know.

I mean, the hood, the everything, the golden shine on the hands that reflects in the light, his hands appear to be more smooth than fully robotic like the other guys? If you look very hard the crimson color is still there in the first photo, it just appears dark.

No clue what the hell happened here 😭 But there we see that Lou is on the ground and then she dies? I have a theory that Lou could be a repatriate like Sam. Sam became a repatriant because Amelie/Bridget ressurected him on the beach. If I remember correctly, Sam did the same to Lou when the crater exploded at the beginning of the game. That's why they both "survived it". It could be possible that because of that, Lou also gained the ability to become a repatriant. But what if something went wrong?

Here we see that Lou "appears" in the pod. But her silhouette looks very similar to a BT. BT's don't age. What if little Lou tried to repatriate by herself but by accident she split her Ha and Ka. Her soul ended up trapped in the pod, or near Sam, and her body was taken by Higgs/to Higgs. He wanted ravage from what was said in the trailer, and what better ravage than taking his beloved kid's life? It would hurt Sam way more than actually doing anything to him directly.

This is when Sam notices that Lou's soul is trapped in the pod perhaps. See the red lightning? It could be when Sam got back to his base.

Since after the attack the lights in the base turned red.

If we look at the 2nd trailer more, we can see that Sam I walking with an empty pod, so he is aware that Lou's soul is in the pod, thanks to it Odradek can still detect threat. This is so interesting!

When Sam and Higgs meet and Higgs takes the empty pod in his hands, touches it and feels something, he's like, kinda in awe?

Then there's the big red cyborg ninja (lmao). It has Odradek's face and we already figured its "possessed" by Lou and tries to protect Sam. I've also seen a theory about Higgs calling himself a ghost and the Ghost in the machine thing, I forgot the user but y'all are genius 🙏🙏

If Higgs is a ghost in a machine, so his soul possesses the cyborg suit, then Lou also can posses a machine, right?

Also I wanna talk about the whole puppet thing and control stuff here because I have thoughts. I don't know if I remember everything correctly 100% so feel free to fix my mistakes, but in the first game Higgs was sort of Amelia's puppet, right? He was the tool she used to get Sam to her, a tool that would push Sam to go thru America and connect it, to connect all the beaches together so she could destroy the world, as it was her destiny. She have Higgs these crazy DOOMS powers. That's why I keep wondering if in the second game Higgs is still a puppet, or did he get tired of it and decided that this time he will be the puppeteer? We see the strings that are on older Lou, we see the strings of the robots that Sam fights with a gun, I'm wondering if Higgs is also pulling the strings of something much bigger.

What if Higgs is responsible for APAC? The private corporation, the patron that gave Fragile the money and tech for the ship? They apparently never saw face-to-face (Higgs' mask), Higgs has a factory with tech, he has all kinds of robots, weapons, he has to have money, and in the 1st trailer it's said that APAC made the final decision, whatever it means. If Higgs sponsors the whole thing, he can also make the decisions. But that's just the thought that I had.

Also the "chrysalis" in which Lou'a body was in kinda reminds me of the sarcophagus in which Higgs was in, just a thought.

Also these weird ass trypophobia inducing things on Lou's arm remind me of the octopus' suction cups on their arms. It's quite similar to the octopus arm in the pod in one of the photos above.

Alright, that's it for now!!! I have no brain cells left, I probably didn't write everything that I wanted cause I forgot, but tell me your ideas if you want, I would love to read your theories!! Does any of it make sense? I don't care because it's a Hideo Kojima game so common sense or any other kind of sense doesn't apply 😍😍

I love analysing this shit it's like crack with some other good stuff

#death stranding #higgs monaghan #death stranding higgs #death stranding 2 #ds2 #death stranding 2 on the beach #death stranding theory #sam porter bridges

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beevean · 10 months

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...so wanna rant about Netflix Isaac for a few minutes ? :P

My calm and collected reaction when I read this ask.

I was just debating on how to write about Isaac and N!Isaac (or Abraham, as I prefer to call him). Unlike Hector and N!Hector (Caesar), where I could prove that the latter could have been like the former if not for terrible writing… I simply do not like Abraham. At all. The more I think about him, the more resentful I feel, which I know it’s not fair because 99% of my resentment comes from people shitting on Isaac to prop the guy. I honestly simply wanted to explain why Isaac is deeper than people give him credit for, and leave Abraham aside, since, as we all know, the dude has nearly nothing in common with his canon counterpart.

… but if you ask so nicely :)

So alright. I will primarily talk about my man Isaac, because I love him and he deserves more love; by doing so, I’ll also explain why there was zero need to turn Abraham into Diet Hector :)

Since this first part mainly focuses on the prequels, as a counterpart to Season 2, it’s better to start with the biggest misconception about Isaac, and what almost certainly lead to Abraham becoming what he became: his personality.

To give a summary of Isaac as most fans know him, he’s extremely flamboyant, theatrical, cruel, consumed by hatred, but also intelligent, strong and determined. He doesn’t appear much, but he steals the scene every time he does. He acts in theory as the rival, much like his predecessors Hugh and Maxim, but he’s far more antagonistic than either of them: he’s not a friend to be saved, he’s an enemy to be punished for his crimes. However, much like the other rivals, he’s strictly connected to the protagonist, and the story treats him as a victim in its more important moments.

Kou Sasakura, who was a hired writer, kept herself fairly close to the game: you can tell not only from the accurate Innocent Devils she drew, but because, well, there’s not much difference between her Isaac and the game one. He’s already dressed in his magnificent CoD outfit, he’s pretty much a dick to everyone who isn’t Dracula, he talks about troops of people dying with glee and boasts about embracing the “laws of heresy”: clearly, he has never been particularly sane to begin with. He’s an entertaining asshole, as he should be. That’s not to say he’s completely flat, though: there’s still plenty to say about this version.

Instead it’s Ayami Kojima, who worked directly on the characters (and clearly preferred Isaac), who wrote a mini-arc to actually show what the Curse did to him. And therefore, he starts off quite unlike one would expect. These posts explain how, in Kojima’s interpretation, a non-Cursed Isaac is an honorable warrior who respects Hector even in battle, cares about a fair fight, is just as compassionate towards his Innocent Devils as Hector is, and is even sensitive to his Lord’s plight. He also uses an elegant sword, rather than his iconic and brutal Chauve-Souris. This paints him as an even more tragic character, and gives weight to Julia’s words when she says that “[her] brother is in the venomous grip of the Curse”.

… but of course who even read Prelude to Revenge :^) certainly not our man Ellis :^)

Abraham has none of this. At the start of the series, he’s not charming, nor he has hidden depths. What you see is what you get: a stonefaced, serious, no-nonsense, contemplative man who hates humankind and trusts Dracula without question and beyond reason, the latter being literally the one thing that connects him to the name Isaac. He self-flagellates, which I can only assume it’s meant to reference Isaac’s BDSM aesthetic – Abraham even changes reasons for doing so between Season 2 (a self-focusing discipline, implied to be a result of the abuse he went through) and 3 (a religious practice), before dropping it completely.

On his own, he’s… fine, I just think he’s pretty dull because he has no quirks or anything that makes him stand out, but he didn’t irritate me as Alucard did. I enjoyed his utter trust in Dracula, which makes him far less approachable compared to the manipulable Caesar: notably, poor Godbrand didn’t even finish airing his grievances to him before getting swiftly killed, and never mentioned again. This establishes Abraham as being strong, efficient, fanatical, and even concerned for his Master’s mental wellbeing – no point in telling him what happened, right?

As someone who is presented as being Isaac, he irritates me: he feels scrubbed down, neutered, because Ellis or whoever was responsible for the personality change clearly thought there was nothing salvageable about Isaac, and removed everything that made him iconic save for the simpness. Well, they were wrong.

Isaac doesn’t get a childhood flashback like Hector, but we see the day he found Dracula’s castle, which tells us already his priorities. His past doesn’t really matter: his devotion to his Lord does. His blind loyalty is his defining characteristic.

Look at this little baby, so happy to have finally found a place that can welcome him and his little sister <3 he has no idea what fate has in store for him <3

But yes, Isaac’s very young age in this scene tells us a lot without actually showing us what he went through. Whatever happened to him broke him far more than Hector’s own traumatic childhood: poor kid can’t be older than thirteen, and he’s already bragging that he has turned his back against God.

In CoD, Julia says that she escaped from the witch hunts in Western Europe. We don’t know if she meant in adulthood or childhood. If the latter, then Isaac was probably involved as well.

We also see that he still cares about Julia, and he wants her to come with him. Sadly we don’t know what happened to her afterwards – if we go by their canonical ages, she’d be a very young child here – but she’ll be important later. Presumably, Dracula didn’t want to take in such a young, inexperienced witch, while Isaac’s more cursed powers could already be honed.

The other half of his flashback chapter in the MF manga sets up other important factors:

Isaac is learning to Forge Devils, but he has trouble with stabilizing them: Isaac is talented, but just not enough, and it’s not a surprise that being “stable” is what gives him the most trouble (we can infer Hector never had an issue with that, as he’s more levelheaded than his companion);

The Succubus taunted Isaac that he’d be surpassed by a new boy: this establishes his inferiority complex, and while this never comes fully into play in the same way it does for other rivals, the implication is that he always saw Hector as an adversary, and it bred even more animosity in his easily corruptible heart;

isaac is the gayest man in wallachia seriously have you seen how he looks at hector

So this is Isaac. What about Abraham?

youtube

Since Isaac’s childhood is far less defined, Abraham had to get his own unique tragic past. Admittedly, not much to point out here: he used to be the slave of a priest who abused him (because CHURCH BAD), but nonetheless Abraham fell in love with his master, and when he confessed, he got punished for it. After killing him, Abraham spent his life on the run, hunted by other people who wanted to kill him and worse, until Dracula personally rescued him. I like how this, much like the MF flashback, paints Abraham as someone who has the tendency to cling to his masters no matter what; and while I prefer the idea of Hector and Isaac knocking on Dracula’s door, I don’t mind the man himself actually helping Abraham. Indeed, Dracula treating him like an outright friend ensures that Abraham will be 100% devoted to him. (if only Dracula’s good relationship with Abraham didn’t come at the cost of the two of them shitting on Caesar…)

Speaking of Caesar! You can’t talk about Isaac without mentioning his crush relationship with Hector! And how it was turned in NFCV :)

Sadly, both mangas give us meager crumbs of what the two thought of each other before Hector’s betrayal, and they diverge quite a bit.

Not much to say about what very little is shown by the PtR manga: Isaac comes off as friendly… or as friendly as he can be:

That power... Perhaps you can become even scarier and crueler than me…

The two even have something resembling a heart-to-heart conversation: Isaac more or less attempts to calm down Hector when he’s in the middle of a morality crisis, although by downplaying his grievances. If the two were friends, they weren’t close ones, or maybe their different moralities were already driving a wedge between them.

The MF manga emphasizes the resentment Isaac felt for Hector, “from the moment [they] first met”:

When he has the confirmation that Hector is alive and has hidden himself on holy grounds, Isaac is ecstatic to face him, so much that he kills his own underlings to go against Dracula’s express order to bring Hector back to him. He is that determined to not only prove his strength to his Lord, but most importantly to kill the traitor with his own hands.

Of course, things may not be as clear-cut as he pretends to be :) He even tried to spare Hector, allegedly in the name of their Lord, but who knows :)

Yeah, who knows.

And CoD itself, while sadly barely touches on Hector and Isaac’s former relationship, gives us another little gem:

I know that Julia has some kind of divination powers, but this doesn't seem like the kind of information she could garner from them. He told her, didn't he?

I was, as you can imagine, immensely disappointed that Abraham and Caesar’s relationship is barely on the level of “coworkers reluctantly forced to share a building”. Abraham’s lack of respect for Caesar is not endearing at all: he treats him with condescension, he insults him behind his back (and to Dracula’s face, who seems to agree with him, and yet again I must ask why did he choose someone he thinks he’s a complete idiot as a General), but he still has time to make a joke about kissing him which at this point comes off as even inappropriate. Caesar, on his part, seems to ignore his existence until Carmilla reminds him of the fact. Not only this complete lack of chemistry is utterly boring, and doesn’t take advantage of the potential differences between the two characters, but it becomes a characterization issue later on.

This all culminates in the fateful moment when Hector and Isaac fight right outside the Castle, freedom and loyalty clashing! And its NFCV equivalent, which has Caesar being dragged against his will into Carmilla’s assault of the castle, and Abraham being yeeted away by Dracula. Yeah, the two don’t fight at all. Because why have a compelling relationship in this show when you can rely on snarky one-liners.

The exact events of the fight differ between the two versions, but they hardly matter in the long run. What matter is that the two fought to the death, Hector emerged superior, and Isaac discovered to his immense horror that, without him and Hector guarding the castle, Trevor Belmont and the others managed to slay Dracula.

Both versions are heartwrenching.

Not only the Curse that Dracula cast upon his death already reached his Generals, but Isaac had a full mental breakdown. You can tell he’s blaming himself for not protecting his Lord, and laments that he has to live without him – Lord Dracula was everything to him, and now that he has failed him to this degree, what else has he to live for?

Why, Hector himself. He can blame him. He was the one who ran away, he was the reason Dracula had to send Isaac in his pursuit. Sure, the Belmont is the one who physically dealt the killing blow, but maybe, if Hector remained loyal, the two could have defeated him together. Even in CoD, Isaac doesn’t direct his fury at Trevor (in fact, in the Japanese version, he even compliments him), because Isaac’s main concern isn’t not him: it’s his former friend who turned his back on him and their Lord.

And what can I even say about this masterpiece from PtR?

I won't let you say that your rebellion has nothing to do with this! Had you cut off my head as well, I would not have seen this… Hector!

Isaac crawled back in shame using his broken sword as a cane, fully expecting to be punished by Dracula for once again proving how inferior he was to Hector. He did not expect to come back to this.

Not only Hector deliberately left Isaac alive, which comes off as a humiliation (interesting contraposition to the MF version, where it’s Isaac who grants Hector mercy in the name of Dracula – they will both regret their decision)… these pages really convey just how much Hector’s defection has taken away from Isaac. In one fell swoop, he has lost his beloved Lord, the only place he could call home, the closest thing he had to a friend, and the work of his lifetime. Is it any wonder that even in this version, he seems to regret that he has to live? Is it any wonder that he’d be fueled for three years with pure hatred for Hector?

In short, Isaac has every single understandable reason in the world for wanting Hector dead.

What’s Abraham’s reason?

First of all, Abraham is, technically speaking, also partially responsible for the fall of Dracula’s castle. While Isaac lost everything through no fault of his own (yes, he killed his underlings in the MF manga and that’s fucked up, but that did not influence the chain of events at all), Abraham was also roped by Caesar into asking Dracula to move the castle under Carmilla’s request. His first reason for agreeing was even “it will stop her from making mischief”, which is a nice way to say “Iook I just want her to shut the fuck up”. Agreeable, surely, but I feel less sorry for him.

But that’s not the issue. The issue is that the Hector vs. Isaac fight simply did not happen, because Caesar did not flee on his own (because he was prevented from having agency), so Abraham was sent away by Dracula when the assault started, out of concern for his soul (or because Dracula wanted to die in peace), and Abraham only knew that Trevor, Sypha, Alucard and the Styrian forces were attacking, not that Caesar was involved.

Thematically, I like that Abraham chose to die for Dracula, but Dracula denied him the choice. He’s a tool, and he’s not even allowed to die on his own terms – much like Isaac, who was forced to live. But I’m still not satisfied.

So, Abraham gave zero shits about Caesar, knew that Carmilla was bad news from the start (but still agreed to her idea), didn’t actually see how the battle ended, actually saw Trevor and the others storm in with his own eyes, and didn’t know that Caesar “betrayed” Dracula.

Why in the fuck is he so pissed at Caesar? What weight does his revenge plan have?

This is what happens when you shoehorn a plot point you read on the wiki without understanding the context. Abraham by all means should either blame himself, or blame Carmilla exclusively. His animosity makes far less sense, and I don’t feel as sorry for him.

On top of this, his loss doesn’t feel as severe. Yes, he was separated from his Lord/friend and the castle, but he still had his immense power (even his Forging knife; he didn’t even have to, for example, find himself another weapon while living vulnerable in the meantime), and he actually has lived in the desert before, meaning he knows how to move and what to do. He also is not afraid of travelling among humans, while Isaac couldn’t let himself be seen even if he wanted to (he looks very visibly “wrong” for the average Middle Age person, and that’s not including the possibility that he was known in Wallachia). He did not lose his entire life: there is simply a big obstacle in his way.

Before I move on, two interesting scenes to compare are the different versions of the Hector vs. Isaac fight, mostly for what the latter says.

In the PtR manga, Isaac seems to be genuinely resentful of how humankind treated him:

Were we known in the human world, we would be chased away with stones… A place where we can exist… a place to cling to… Where was it?!

This is fairly in line with what you would expect from him: humans hated him, so he hates human in return, and this is why he’s outraged that Hector would even dare to turn his back to their Lord.

But the MF version has a slightly different flavor:

I pointed out different times that Isaac seems to put more focus on how humans did not respect Dracula enough than how they were cruel towards Hector and him. And indeed, Isaac rarely if ever expresses outright misanthropic views, in the same way Dracula does. This is a more interesting approach, in my opinion: Isaac genuinely doesn’t care about mankind, he’s not motivated by spite against them, he’s only motivated by the love and gratitude he feels for the first creature who showed him respect. And if said creature orders him to slaughter humans, oh well.

I have already talked extensively about Isaac’s “tool” mentality, so I won’t repeat myself. Long story short, Isaac nearly dehumanizing himself and refusing to have his own agency outside of Lord Dracula acts as a contrast to Hector, whose main goal is to gain agency over his own life.

Needless to say, Abraham gets this only halfway through. Yes, he also starts the series believing to be Dracula’s tool. Unlike Isaac, though, he spends two season unable to shut up about how much he despises mankind and considers them the root of all evil and believes that by exterminating mankind the world will be full of love. His dialogue gets incredibly repetitive in no time flat. Abraham is not endearing: he's pretentious.

So I suppose it’s time to jump to the three years between CV3 and CoD/Season 3.

In short, my man Isaac is not coping well with the divorce :’D

This post by @the-crow-binary is a great breakdown of Isaac’s mental state in the MF manga. The Curse has taken a hold of him already, and he’s ranting, obsessed, shaking in fear and rage: an absolute mess.

Still better than how we find him in PtR:

Mmh… So you can make that kind of face… I've gotten a lot better too... How many times has the moon waxed and waned, I wonder? That’s a nice expression… I'm happy. Good pain is proof of life. I won't grant you the peace of death so easily: live, spit blood, and then…

Lord Dracula is with us!

As I have pointed out, in this version, Isaac rotted the entire time completely alone in the ruins of his old home, easy prey for the Curse. He had nowhere else to go, and apparently he didn’t consider to find his sister again. Anyone would have gone mad, even without Dracula's help.

(side note, I love love love how this manga justifies Isaac's iconic outfit by showing that Hector ruined it first, and then Isaac let it fall off his body, no longer in the conditions to care:

Hector broke Isaac's outfit. Hector broke Isaac's mind and heart. It's so interesting how Hector truly is the villain in Isaac's story <3)

And speaking of broken heart! I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this small detail of Isaac writing Hector's name on the sole of his boot. Whether you interpret it as a hex or him expressing twisted romantic feelings, one thing's for certain: Hector is at the forefront of Isaac's thoughts. I cannot stress enough how personal Isaac's revenge is, much like Hector's own revenge quest will be.

This is how we feel the weight of his devious plan to get revenge on the man who took everything away from him, by taking his hard-earned happiness away as well.

So how’s Abraham doing?

This is the part of the show where he turns from secondary antagonist to full protagonist and darling of the narrative.

Season 3 is where Abraham supposedly starts his super compelling character arc, moving away from being Dracula’s tool and giving himself a new purpose. Allegedly, his ingrained misanthropy gets constantly challenged by actually experiencing human kindness, although sadly the lessons don’t quite stick. On paper, this sounds very intriguing, not unlike Hector learning what love is thanks to Rosaly (hint hint). However, I find the execution laughable at best, and irritating at worst.

This is what Abraham does in this season. He decides that he wants a big army, which means killing humans. He travels. He meets a kind shopkeeper that gifts him a mirror that tells him where to go next. He’s stopped by guards because he has an army of demons: Abraham is sad that they’re not as kind as the previous person and kills them. He travels. He boards a ship with an intriguing captain, who manages to tell him that committing human genocide would deprive the world of happiness. He’s stopped by guards because he has an army of demons: Abraham is sad that they’re not as kind as the previous person and kills them. He travels. He talks with a philosopher demon who tells him that CHURCH BAD. He meets a woman that tells him where to go next. He kills a bunch of people and kills a magician.

This is… not really an arc. Abraham allegedly takes one step forward, and then immediately one step back. He doesn’t get better nor worse. He just talks a lot in the meantime pretending to be deep.

Now, I do like the scenes with the shopkeeper and the captain, those two are well written; I also like Miranda as a look on what Abraham could become if he gets consumed by despair, ironically acting as the Isaac to Abraham’s Hector (hint hint). But this scene, one of the most popular ones for Abraham, pisses me off.

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Abraham wants to travel with a giant army of demons in tow. The guards insist that he must turn back because, well, giant army of demons. This is literally the second time in a row that this happens, hence the famous “is this the definition of insanity?” quote. Oh, but not because Abraham is stupid in expecting that humans would move out for him, but because poor thing, he really had hopes that humans could be good, but no, they keep hurting him! By doing their job! Oh no, they are slightly aggressive to the dark wizard who can control demons, how awful of them!

Sure, Abraham is correct in saying that he literally can’t turn back because he’s at the harbor, and yes the guards had no chance against Abraham, but the way this scene is framed, we’re supposed to feel sorry that poor little Abraham got confirmation that all humans are stupid and evil after all, and really, is it any wonder that he snapped and killed them all?

This is what Isaac would do. Slaughtering a bunch of humans because they were “fucking rude” to him? It’s just as cartoonishly evil as Abraham fans accuse Isaac of being. Except that in his case, it would be clear that he’s batshit insane, and not in the philosophical way Abraham pretends to be.

Abraham ends Season 3 in the same place where he started, and I have no idea how he managed to become this popular.

Most insultingly, Abraham isn’t allowed to lose. Abraham isn’t allowed to be set back. In the season where every character suffers, is traumatized, or loses something (Caesar and Alucard being by far the worst victims), Abraham ends the season happily killing brainwashed people to then kill a generic magician to get to a magic mirror that would lead him directly to his destination, along with the army of demons that he created by killing people, after a lady he happened to meet told him about the existence of said mirror.

People in NFCV can smell magic? Well, I can smell favoritism.

But okay, he’s still a bad guy, right? I’m not meant to sympathize with him, right? I’m just in for the ride because he’s “cool”, right?

Enter CoD/Season 4.

You, who gave up your powers and became the lowest of the low, nothing but mere scum.

Sadly, CoD has a severe dearth of Isaac appearances, after the iconic first cutscene. He is as I described him in the beginning: an utter bastard. However, I appreciate his overall plan that sets up the whole plot.

There is a lot of speculation and holes-filling to do here (I suspect he had Death’s help, at least when it came to the Infinite Corridor part of the plan, but we have no proof), but the point is, he has all the means to inflict a most terrible punishment on Hector, by taking advantage of the Curse that he’s spreading and that consumed him, and also by taking advantage of Hector himself. The two knew each other well: Isaac knew that Hector would be unstoppable in his quest for revenge, to the point that he felt confident enough to spell out his plan, which is to guide Hector so that he can regain his cursed powers (even drawing schemes to explain how to Forge, which is hilarious when you think about it). What would Hector do anyway, give up? That’s not like him. Isaac knows this. The only part he omits is that he needs those immense powers not just to make their fateful match worth it, but to break the seal that prevents the castle from resurrecting. A very clever spin on the classic “get stronger so that our fight will be worth it” plan.

(contrast this well-thought out plan with Abraham getting everything he wants on a silver platter.)

We also get a cute moment where he retreats at the sight of Julia, almost as if he was afraid of hurting her, implying that he can feel more than smugness and rage.

Sadly, the end of his story is not a happy one. By the time he faces Hector like he wanted, his former friend is absolutely livid that he had been played like a fiddle… and more important, he regained all of his strength. Which was more than Isaac’s. Oops, that part wasn’t very well thought-out. But it’s not Hector who kills him: he saves himself from the Curse taking complete hold of him just in the nick of time. No, it’s Death, who decides to use the “other one” (even making fun of him in the process) to resurrect Dracula. Either the ritual or Hector slashing his possessed body to pieces puts an end to Isaac’s madness. Despite Julia’s best wishes, Isaac never rose from the darkness that consumed him. He constantly chose loyalty to Dracula and hatred, and that doomed him. Furthermore, his own name acted as an omen: much like the Biblical Isaac, he was set to be sacrificed in the name of the closest thing to a God he worshipped.

As for Abraham… at this point in his arc, it’s pointless to compare him to Isaac, because he has officially turned into Hector. By reversing Isaac’s downfall, the writers accidentally recreated Hector’s character arc of finding agency for himself, killing the person responsible for his pain (well, he wants to, but Carmilla in true #girlboss fashion peaces out on her own terms), and then moving on from Dracula, accepting to live in full. It’s. It’s Hector. Except worse.

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What else can I say? Abraham got his revelation off screen, during a time-skip: now he wants to create, to do good in the world like when he killed the evil magician. He sets out to invade Styria to kill Caesar, but then changes his mind at the last second, and even tells him to not go with his plan of resurrecting Dracula. No internal struggle, just a ton of words. No mention of all the people he has gleefully killed for petty reasons. No remorse at all. Not an obstacle he had to overcome. Not even an ounce of self-loathing that at least made Hector more sympathetic. Abraham fails at being a good reinterpretation of Isaac, and fails at being an interesting anti-hero with a solid journey.

To be clear, I'm not saying he should have died like Isaac. Again, at this point I accept that he became Hector. But his happiness simply doesn't feel earned. He got what he wanted after a fairly small loss (Dracula died, sure, but he never got confirmation for that), and he had his character development offscreen. His narrative is a rushed version of what Hector was allowed to be through two mangas and a game, and yet he's the one hailed as the best character of all time.

Just to cap it off, I can’t help but complain about how dull and forgettable Abraham’s design is. He’s literally just a man who walked into the set and stole Isaac’s full Devil Forgemaster outfit. There is no reason for him to be associated with red (his magic), since the Red Oni Blue Oni dynamic with Caesar has been lost. His tattoos do not convey anything, and we rarely see them in full anyway. Also why does he have a different crest on his back???? IT'S A UNIFORM! It drives me mad! At least try to understand the source material for fuck's sake!

Isaac is iconic. He’s immediately recognizable in the Castlevania cast, but still fitting in thanks to key elements. He doesn’t look fully human, with his bright red hair and yellowish eyes: he doesn’t have the typical Kojima pretty face, but he has more distinguishable features such as a big nose: the tattoos tell a whole story about him and it’s fun to imagine what they symbolize – high pain tolerance? A desire to defile his own body to spite God? Some arcane symbol, the result of a ritual? And then there’s the Devil Forgemaster crest forever embedded in his back, representing his full devotion and the fate he could not escape from. He truly looks like everything Hector isn't.

This post got long. And again, I didn't even care to talk about Abraham, because I don't like him one bit and because I love Isaac independently from this overhyped character. But hey, you asked, and I ranted with great pleasure :P

also have this absolute banger

youtube

does abraham have a sick ass theme? yeah didn't think so

#castlevania #curse of darkness #isaac laforeze #anti netflixvania #long post #like really long #like really fucking long #oh my god it took me a whole ass day #and i had to watch nfcv clips for this it did not calm me down at all #at least i got to explain why i love isaac so much in a convenient masterpost

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sir-yeehaw-paws · 1 year

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Raiden has been a controversial character since his surprise debut in MGS2. The world was outraged that everyone’s favourite badass Sold Snake had been replaced by a whiny, ineffective fop who couldn’t walk on a bit of bird poo without slipping on his arse. He was massively unpopular. Perhaps as a response to the backlash, the character returned in MGS4 as a cyborg ninja killing machine. He was still kind of emo, but now he could also take on an entire squad of bad guys. “Raiden was in Metal Gear Solid 2 is because at the end of Metal Gear Solid, Snake had become this legendary hero. It didn’t make sense to have this legendary hero start from scratch in the game, having these codec calls coming in telling him how to do basic actions. It didn’t sit well with me. So I decided it would make more sense to have a new guy come in, a newbie in the form of Raiden. He could grow with the player and look at Snake from the third-person point of view as this great hero.”

-Excerpt from Interview with Hideo Kojima. PlayU Magazine: The UK’s Only Playstation Magazine. 2013.

#mgs #gaming magazines #nate transcriptions #nates transcriptions adventures #hideo kojima #gaming interviews #raiden #helptkjansdjknkadsjjasnddaskj #im still going to be transcribing and uploading the whole interview but this distracted me intensely akjsndjkasd #solid snake

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arcplaysgames · 1 year

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Man do y'all remember when I was sad at the start of P4G because the game did not adequately pat my head and feed me soup and give me friends on day one like P3P did

that was fucking little leagues. I'm gonna light everyone in this game on fire.

Anyway, we are in the tutorial stages so lemme sum up except with there's weird shit I wanna pontificate on.

Reverie missed a bunch of school on his first day with frankly doesn't look amazing for him. We met Ryoji GODDAMN RYUJI on the roof, because all Persona games love the school roof, and he wants to go back to the App World so he can poke around on Kamoshida.

There is palpably some Beef between Ryuji and Kamoshida. There is some fucking t-bone 3-inch cut that I have seasoned in mushroom salt and fresh ground pepper and left to air-dehydrate for three days, there is soooo much beef between them.

In the Not-Velvet Room-- Look, I am gonna start calling it the VR for efficiency's skae but be aware I do not think this is actually the Velvet Room, or if it is then someone has booted Igor and is pretending to be him.

But yeah Notigor says our rehabilitation can begin and I just wanna claw my hair out. What's funny is I know for a lot of fans, Persona 5 was their entry point. Did they know this was as severely fucked as it is? I feel like the game is pushing Fucked As Hell vibes pretty well, so maybe it was obvious even to the initiated.

Oh so Notigor is the one pushing the unauthorized APK onto my phone. I think Reverie is rocking a Samsung, it's got that Chonk to it.

Also, I dunno what it's called in the Japanese... hang on, to google!

Isekainabi, or "Otherworldnavi" that's pretty good. Which, the adjustment of "navi" to "nabi" reminds me that Japanese doesn't use 'v' does it? Or.... wait.... R is also a no, right?

(That is shit I learned from fucking Metal Gear Solid 2 actually, because my beloved Problematic Fave Kojima called the big villains the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo, because they were 'invisible', they weren't even a part of the language, metaphorically speaking, which when I understand that I thought was fucking smart as hell, though I imagine the original voice actors who had to say it a lot and rapidly did not agree.)

ANYWAY I AM GETTING DISTRACTED, POINT IS, I picked a hilariously un-apt name with Reverie Vantas. That is a tongue-twister and I am sorry.

what the fuck was i even talking about OH YEAH Netscape Navigator, yeah. That's our Dark Hour/TV World, the Metaverse. I find it cursorily interesting that Persona has many different manifestations of the whole Jungian Collective Subconsciousness. P4's TV World was fully separated and impossible to access without the power of Persona. But Reverie and Ryuji stumbled like idiots into the....

wait, that cutscene from the start, that was Reverie's awakening to Persona. So what caused it. Also: Is that relevant to the mystery here like it was in P4, because in P4 that was super important, and I would prefer it wasn't Super Important again lmao.

God the Izanami thing was dumb. ANY FUCKING WAY.

I briefly meet THAT ONE GIRL FROM THE INTRO on the train, and her personality traits seem to be "worryingly doormat-ish" and "thin'

Like man, P5R is not hitting me over the head with DIET SODA ADS but we are still fatphobic, don't forget! BTW if you want a Persona game that doesn't do that shit, P3P Girl Route baybeeeee best Persona.

I am apprently ribbon girl's senpai and she bows to me twice nad runs off to school. Later, gator.

holy shit this game doesn't fuck around with its classroom questions, are you kidding me

also I am sitting behind Moot in class. how's your life been since relinquishing 4chan, moot? I hope it's better.

Mitsuru would use her rapier to carve you like a chunk of roast.

Kamoshida's influence over everyone is kind of baffling to me. It's a VOLLEYBALL TEAM. Oh is that the Japanese equivalent of a football team? Because then I TOTALLY GET IT, CARRY ON.

Like, I understand sort of academically that having sports teams is good for students but also I fucking hate school sports culture. Dunno if its as vile in Japan as in America but if its even half as bad, yeah, abolish it.

Ryuji is so far not the brightest bulb on the tree, bless him. He keeps trying to locate a castle and getting frustrated. Finally, we put him out of his confused misery and use the app to make castle happen.

HE IS JEALOUS! In almost every jock there is a theatre kid's soul, crying to get out.

Ryuji has like no indoor voice, Morgana, I am sorry.

Also, I have so far zero indication of Morgana's gender, which I do like. 8) Gender don't matter, just don't call me a fucking cat.

There is a huge tutorial section, and I immediately understand why this game is +100 long, these sequences are much more complicated now. There's psuedo-stealth mechanics? Blurgh.

Ryuji wants to save the volleyball slaves and Morgana explains that these aren't actually them, they are cognitive copies that are.... essentially the projection Kamoshida has of each person in the school.

I don't wanna be a jerk Persona but this is adding more and more complexity to your already complex world. But maybe I am still in P4G mode, where every aspect of how the Midnight Channel worked was a clue. At this point, there is no central mystery.

hey yo what the fuck

Somehow Kamoshida broke Ryuji's fucking leg?????

What the fuck happened there? Also yeah, Ryuji, I don't know you super well yet but I'm with you, we can wreck this guy. Holy shit.

boy howdy getting your persona stings a bit in this one huh

Ryuji has Captain Kidd as his, with is pretty fun NGL. So our theme is literally Various Types Of Thieves in this game, huh? I'm cool with that.

#p5 #persona liveblog

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shinsengumi-archives · 10 months

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I discovered recently that the 2 photos that were posted by people claiming that it's Yamanami Keisuke were not real photos of him. (Someone pointed out the family crest on the haori of the two men in the photos and they weren't Yamanami's). I've been looking for a portrait or photo of him but couldn't find any. The only description I found was Yagi Tamesaburo's: "he was not so tall, had fair-skinned lovable face"

Do you have any information about that? Anything about his appearance or personality would be greatly appreciated🙏

Is this the photo that people claimed was him?

This is actually a photo of Yamada Hachiro who was part of the First Japanese Embassy to Europe, but people often mistake it for Yamanami Keisuke and it was even used on his Wikipedia page at one point.

From the blurry photo, we can still see that the family crest (kamon) on his sleeve is different from Yamanami's family crest:

There are many fake photos of Yamanami Keisuke, but unfortunately, no confirmed photos of him exist.

According to shinsengumi-no-makoto:

Yamanami was “slightly tall” and had a pale complexion. His face was supposed to be somewhat round. He is described as a gentle, amiable man and was very intelligent. He enjoyed reading Chinese poetry. Yamanami was loved by the people of the Mibu neighborhood. Yet despite all of this he could be very severe when he needed to be. Aside from Kondo, it is said that he got along well with Okita, Todo, and Ito. His exact relationship with Hijikata is the subject of debate.

I'm not sure what was the original source for this description and it contradicts Yagi's statement that "he was not so tall". Yagi's quote is probably more accurate since it's first-hand.

The full quote from Japanese Wiki Corpus is: "he was not so tall, had fair-skinned lovable face, liked kids and talked to them wherever he met them (丈はあまり高くなく、色白の愛嬌のある顔。子どもが好きで、どこで逢ってもきっと何か声をかけた)" (from Rojin Mibu Banashi (八木為三郎老人壬生話) by Yagi Tamesaburo).

That page also describes his personality and reputation:

Sannan was a kind-hearted person and was adored by women and children in Mibu area. There was a saying "kind persons are Sannan and Matsubara Chuji" which was popular in the Mibu until the early Meiji period. According to Shinsengumi Ibun (exceptional matters), he had a good reputation among troops and in the Mibu area, unlike Serizawa Kamo. Kojima Shikanosuke, a sponsor of Shinsengumi, described Sannan as a "warrior but literate". Even Nishimura Kanefumi, who was known for his severe criticism of Shinsengumi, called him "a person who understands method of matters in some degree" in Mibu Roshi Shimatsuki.

We can see his personality first-hand through a letter and a Chinese poem that was written by him right before going to Kyoto:

The bounds of my aspirations lie beyond the edge of the heavens, My endless loyalty is contained within one sword. Whatever steep and perilous roads lie in the ten thousand ri ahead, I make haste for the Imperial Capital to serve with honor and merit.

From this poem, it seems he was a person with a lot of ideals and high aspirations. While there are many theories about why he died, I think he died from depression caused by disillusionment towards the Shinsengumi.

From the letter and the poem, we can see that he was interested in the Chinese language.

Also, his name was likely pronounced Sannan (on'yomi pronounciation) instead of Yamanami (kun'yomi pronounciation).

#yamanami #appearance #personality #recommended

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sadistpet · 3 months

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(( ok, i saw you post a portrayal meme i think and i just wanted to drop in there for a quick minute and do a thing; I AM SORRY IF THIS MAKES LITTLE SENSE I AM SO SLEEPY

oh my lord, where did you come from? like, you appeared one day and the volgin inside me was like 'AY OOP U WOT' and dont get me wrong i need to get on volgin and let these men make love but shhh enough of that a minnie while i talk some waffle;

firstly, your writing is. MWAH. the goOD CUSH. the best cush even? i've seen you talk of your education and like, in my opinion, it goes beyond that. like, i read your writing and im just- i feel as though i should get a hot cup of cocoa and snug up as if i'm reading a book. you're articulate and your words are beautifully written. im no critic by any means (high school level BAYBEEEE) but i can tell you now that when i read your writing, i'm simply blown away by how incredible it is. you can see the passion in your words, the way you describe things, people, places, etc. it's like seeing someone paint a beautiful picture - but with words! (if that makes sense???)

as for your portrayal; THANK YOU SO MUCH. seriously, thank you for showing us raikov. thank you for giving him more than just 'the pretty boy comic relief lover of big scary man'. you've given him so much more, while staying canon, respecting canon and doing canon justice. i think if kojima saw the way that you write raikov, he would give it his blessing because you truly do such a magical job with the character. i always say to people who are passionate about their characters that i love that, i admire it. it excites me seeing writers clearly in love with what they're writing and i always get that vibe from you. and AND as one side character writer to another, straight up solidarity with you, my friend. keep doing a wonderful job (i know u will).

fINALLY cause i have WAFFLED MASSIVELY, you - are so wonderful. seriously, always supportive, always sweet, always kind. i want to pat your head and show u to everyone like that one will smith meme. you're fab and i am SO so glad that we're moot moots. thank you for being so fabulous, i'd tell you to keep being amazing but i know that you will. <3 ))

OH MY GODDDDDS HAN YOU ARE SO SWEET ( CRUSHES YOU AFFECTIONATELY LIKE WHEN RAIDEN DOES IT WITH A SPINE ) YOU ARE LITERALLY SO SWEET IM THROWING UP SCREAMING CRYING

to answer your question of where i came from i was in fact delivered to this world in a very small little basket with pink bows on it and an atomic bomb in my hands. and i found out about raikov because my beloved showed me mgs2 and he loves raiden ( me too ) and raikov is obviously linked on his page and something about him just made me keep coming back. maybe because i am also blonde haired blue eyed love eating whiny mean and annoying. but something about him i just needed to write. i love love love taking neglected characters and doing a 2000s makeover to make them into an actual Character and he was a perfect candidate !

and then i nailed down this url and i just HAD to make this blog ESPECIALLY WHEN I SAW THAT YOUR BLOG EXISTED. OH MY GOD. i was like no now i need to theres a fucking stellar writer here writing volgin. i need to throw raikov at them with all the strength of a baseball pitcher or whatever theyre called idk baseball terms BUT YOU GET THE PICTURE. part of the reason this blog exists is literally because of yours. SO YOU HAVE YOURSELF TO THANK

YOURE SO SWEET since i developed cfs/me in my mid-late teens ive felt my writing has kinda. gone downhill. so it makes me so happy to hear that people are still enjoying what i'm doing ;o; YOU ARE SO SWEET I AM SO GLAD I DIDNT LET THE AVPD WIN AND STOP ME FROM MAKING THIS BLOG CAUSE AUGH. AUGH. everyone intimidated me so much but youre all so so sweet and nice to me i fucking baheem sob sob THANK U SO MUCH. GRABS YOU

#SCREAMS ALL THE TIME FOREVER. SCREAMS. FROWS UP #SAVE #g: ¦ ❝ ooc. ❞#g: ¦ ❝ answered. ❞

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let-robots-dream · 1 year

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First off, I sure hope the “keep reading” works because this will probably be long!

Secondly, I’m swinging for the fences here, there’s not a TON of information from one trailer but I HAVE SOME IDEAS ANYWAYS!!!

Having finished writing this part, it’s VERY long and ended up being basically entirely about The Intestine Rocker and the Cult (great band name)

Ok let me give my opinion on whether this small intestine rocker is Higgs.

I mean. It just is. There’s really no reason to doubt that it’s Higgs. It’s his voice, Troy Baker is the one singing BB’s theme, (as credited in the trailer itself) and I know people have already pointed out the identical looking ear and general body shape. I even listened to some of Troy Bakers other songs to confirm the “featuring” on the track wasn’t just for the tiny last bit and it definitely sounds like he’s singing the whole time. ( A good example, if you want to hear for yourself, is the song Fade from the game The Medium. His first solo part starts 1:25 in.)

Plus some of these early mask designs sure look similar.

Now it may have been awhile since I’ve taken anatomy, and not to get too graphic, but humans are pretty tightly packed internally. If that’s his insides he’s missing things. A LOT of things, basically everything in the lower body cavity. It looks like he’s cut off below the diaphragm? That being said, this is a sci-fi game and there’s probably sci-fi reasons he’s still kicking.

What this could be showing is that Intestine Rocker and the Cult (I’m calling folk in red a cult for now) have somehow found a way to use their own bodies to power odradeks? Or possibly found a way to pull energy into themselves with their odradeks? Or possibly just to… live longer? Or just to be directly connected to the other side?

QUICK FIRE IDEAS:

Maybe they’re tapped into bodies in comas like how BB was. Maybe that’s just a shell of his body and he’s mostly somewhere else. It could be that that’s a portal to another persons insides and that’s why it looks deep into his torso but also looks like an armor plate. Maybe they did it the old fashioned way by hollowing their internal organs out and pouring BB juice in. (I think it’s amniotic fluid in the BB pod, but I can’t remember if they say that.) and if it IS amniotic fluid, then he’s effectively his own BB and the logic is probably that his small intestines are absorbing the nutrients from the fluid. That’d at least explain why he wouldn’t need a stomach or kidneys. IF that’s the case, rather like how BB needed to plug in to ‘charge,’ so too, would these guys.

You can see on his back that the odradek is thicker. Covered in rubber. It reminds me of the BB pod’s thick connecting tube. I think it’s directly plugged into him.

I’ll spare you pictures of intestines, you can look it up if you want, but the thick rubber arm connected to the device looks similarish (emphasis on the ISH) to a large intestine, at least from the side. My non DS fan friend, who I check with to see if I’m just seeing things I want to see, says none of them look like intestines to her. (She’s team he’s filled with tubes) So It’s a reach but I figured I’d mention it, especially since his torso seems to only show small intestines.

The last thing I have to say about Intestine Rocker is the one only thing that might make him not Higgs. And that’s, fonts. In the Japanese trailers, when it’s the English speaking subtitled, Kojima has used a different font for Higgs to show his accent and that’s not used for the one line I *think* is him talking. And Troy’s singing and one speaking line I KNOW is him are very intenially not subtitled. I still think it’s Higgs!!! but there have been some interesting differences in translation for trailers in the past. (I’ve noticed Kojima favors as direct a translation as possible so it happens rarely.)

Let’s talk about that cult!!!!!! Buckle up!

So this appears to be a very important symbol for the cult. It even has a dedicated and long shot dedicated to it in the trailer. It’s pretty clearly Amalie, I can’t imagine it NOT being her unless we’re getting a HUGE time jump and that’s Lou. But considering Intestine Rocker wears Amalie’s face, she’s their leader either literally or symbolically. (And I’m not seeing significant enough aging from any characters we’ve seen to think there’s that big a time jump.)

So I asked around because all I was seeing was a cross and that didn’t fit Death Stranding’s imagery to me. Then my same non DS friend went, “It’s Isis.” And I went, to quote Higgs, “Well SHIT.” Because I think she’s right.

You have the sun, the wings and the throne version of her crown (her crown can be the sun between horns or a throne) that also echos the portal/tunnel/arch. It appears to have been made with the same technology that makes the roads in DS. (You can see the tiny rocks floats near the roads, if I’m remembering correctly)

And most importantly she’s the goddes of fertility, motherhood, magic, death, healing, and rebirth.

It would be. So VERY VERY Higgs to make Amalie into an Egyptian goddess. You want to know what myth Isis is most famous for? The Osiris myth. Where Osiris get chopped up to pieces and she gathers them and puts with back together. I’m simplifying a lot because it’s mythology and there’s quite a few different versions and it’s LONG, but Osiris is also associated with the origins of mummification, resurrection and the seasonal flooding of the Nile. I encourage you to read the wiki if you’re ok with a myth that’s uhhh M for Mature. (So be aware)

There’s a lot of possible story parallels and it wouldn’t be the first time Death Stranding took some inspiration from Egyptian mythology. (Again lots of versions I couldn’t tell you what version Kojima would be drawing from. The version I knew was a bit different from the wiki as well)

Considering the viscera we are seeing from Intestine Rocker/Higgs maybe he sees himself as an Osiris? He might even see himself as a Horus, who was Osiris and Isis’s child. But considering the child Horus is conceived while Osiris is dead and the fertility goddess is alive… (I did say the myth was mature) Well, that could also fit for Lou. That would be a possible explanation for why the cult seems to be after them? (It’s unclear if it’s the cult attacking them at the beginning or if thats a memory or a flashback)

I wanted to put all my DS2 thoughts here but Tumblrs telling me that I’m not allowed more than 10 images from a mobile device and I don’t have a computer atm.

So I guess this is just a Higgs and Cult break down and I’ll have to talk about color in Death Stranding, angel wing symbolism and BTs in an entirely separate super long post…

Anyways! Share your thoughts! Your theories!

Full disclosure, not a single one of my theories before the first game came out were even CLOSE to correct! So I’m excited to learn more about the game!

#death stranding #DS2 #Death Stranding 2 #I’ve literally been writing this all day trying to make sure I had my proof all lined up correctly #but now I am out of steam #but seriously I love hearing opinions and seeing people jump off theories with their own!#I really want to talk about the color white in DS but I need so many more screenshots #omg I didn’t even get to talk about MAGELON

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