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simkjrs · 2 years

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How about Kusuke for that ask meme? Would love to hear more of your thoughts on that little freak 😊

favorite thing about them

im kind of obsessed with his misanthropic mad scientist ways. theres nothing funnier about kuusuke than his complete lack of consideration for the happiness or quality of life for the rest of the human race. just look at him <3

least favorite thing about them

i hate all the incest jokes baked into his character. asou shuuichi had a perfectly interesting and compelling guy without that so why did he have to ruin it.

aside from that i think its really sad when he regularly invades saiki's privacy & bodily autonomy (such as adding a trigger to saiki's second limiter device without telling him. someone introduce kuusuke to the concept of informed consent please). i do think that this is one of the most interesting points of conflict between him and saiki tho so i wish asou shuuichi did something more with it where saiki gets a character arc learning how to assert his boundaries after living his whole life unable to respect others boundaries (due to x ray and mindreading) and without others respecting his (see: his dad and kuusuke)

favorite line

brOTP

i <3 saiki and kuusukes fucked beyond all repair brothers relationship i love how they care about each other but this fixes nothing and makes everything worse. its so interesting how they shaped each other growing up, and how despite resenting each other they also give each other things they cant get from anyone else -- kuusuke finding a "playmate" who can challenge him and stimulate his creativity, kusuo having someone he can rely on when it comes down to a crisis (such as his limiter breaking or needing to find a way to stop japan from being destroyed by a super volcano explosion).

of course, the fact that kuusuke cant be relied on in any other circumstance is also what makes the relationship interesting i think. like if kuusuke isn't helping saiki fix a problem, then he's the one causing all of saiki's problems. i really wish that we got more exploring their relationship.

that said it's really hard to enjoy them whole heartedly when all the incest jokes keep sneaking in. sorry i keep bringing this up but i really do hate them so much. like either commit to the incest/harrassment plotline and do your best to thoughtfully & respectfully portray the consequences of that trauma, or just leave it out. dont make it into a joke LOL ... literally why does anyone ever think this is funny

OTP

kuusuke x his pure & innocent disregard for humanity <3

nOTP

i see people shipping him with teruhashi makoto sometimes and its like ... why ... would you think that putting two creeps together would fix anything about them. they wouldnt make each other worse in a fun or interesting way. and they wouldnt even be funny

random headcanon

i think that kuusuke stopped resenting saiki shortly after he left home to go to cambridge because suddenly he was the smartest most genius most admired person in the room again but it was so boring because no one could challenge him and there was nothing to surpass. since life felt very boring & meaningless like this, i think that made him reevaluate his relationship with his brother and he realized that as much as it frustrated him to lose it made him happy to have a goal to always strive for. so i think after that, his ill will towards saiki mostly disappeared ... though he still has deadly serious competitive intent.

that said i think saiki never realized kuusuke's change of heart because kuusuke invented the telepathy canceler. and i think kuusuke wasnt interested in correcting saiki about how he felt now, and i think kuusuke didnt give much (if any) consideration to how it would make saiki feel to keep living under the misconception that his brother still hated him but had simply found a way to hide his plotting, forever. in conclusion: kuusuke is kind of the worst. LOL

unpopular opinion

ive already said all my unpopular opinions. my extremely niche opinion is that if saiki kuusuke and enoshima junko were born into the same world they would perfectly cancel each other out because what they both wanted was to fulfill their boredom and what they both did to do that was raise the stakes on other people until they managed to stop them (or didnt). kuusuke and junko would become perfect rivals. they would be like bbc sherlock and moriarty if they were high schoolers. they would be like L and light if L was completely amoral and just devote to winning the case for the sake of winning, and light was also completely amoral and just killing people to see what would happen. and they would be exactly like this post

song i associate with them

HMM i don't really have one. if i had to pick one... primadonna by marina. LOL

favorite picture of them

i cant pick one so you get three.

#ask #ask game #long post

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panvani · 3 years

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So currently, my thoughts on Shannon/Kanon and why they’re Like That is in short (also typing this out I feel completely insane and like I’m gonna be totally wrong but it’s funny so):

Shannon/Kanon are different versions of the same person, who chooses to present differently for their own reasons.

The distinction between “love” and “marriage” is pretty obviously important. There are a limited number of issues which could allow love but prevent marriage. Shannon and Kanon have a significant class difference from their respective love interests, but that issue has been raised and disregarded- it’s Japan in the 80′s, so there’s no legal barrier to two people of different social classes from marrying, and given the will of the Ushiromiya family has been disregarded when it comes to marriage class is not actually an issue in preventing marriage. The other potential aspect is simply “Shannon and Kanon have some weird hangups that stop them from marrying,” but that issue has also been raised and disregarded as the primary reason on the basis that it’s just really lame.

The only remaining reason I can think of is that, put simply, Shannon/Kanon’s relationships with their respective love interests would not be legally recognized as between man and woman. That is to say, one or both is trans, so the legal institution of marriage would not understand their relationship as heterosexual, and thus say their union is illegitimate. I think this is a pretty easy conclusion to come to once you get the “love is different from marriage,” bit, assuming you have a normal perspective on trans people.

The reason I hypothesize that Shannon and Kanon are the same person choosing to present in different ways is mostly because of the way their romance conflict is presented. While the “they’re trans” pretty neatly resolves the “why can’t they get married?” issue, it doesn’t explain why fate allows only one to succeed in romance. While that’s technically only a fantastic story figment, it’s treated as a legitimate part of Shannon and Kanon’s respective arcs, and I can’t imagine an interpretation that simply disregards their conflict.

Thus, I reached the conclusion that the reason only one could succeed is their conflict with one another is actually an internal conflict, where one aspect of a greater self must be chosen over the other. This is supported by the discussion of their respective plans in the event one or the other succeeds: if Shannon wins, she will leave the island- and so will Kanon, but for whatever reason, he will not go with her. If Kanon wins, he will remain on the island- and so will Shannon, but for whatever reason, the two will no longer be close. Their fates are bound together, but are treated as mutually exclusive. Even though there’s nothing obligating Shannon to stay or Kanon to leave upon their respective losses, and to do so seems painful for each, they treat it as an absolutely necessary course of action.

There is some external evidence for this interpretation. First is the somewhat strange way their relationship is presented to us. While they have no blood relation, they refer to each other as siblings- and are one of the only male/female pairs with absolutely no romantic subtext. That is, the story repeatedly goes out of its way to clarify that Shannon and Kanon have a purely familial affection for one another, when this not done of any other pairing, and, well... to be honest, I don’t think Ryukishi07 is that concerned with the ethics of whatever. It’s specific and noticeable. In addition is the use of “nee-san” by Kanon, despite he and Shannon being the same age. Why make their ages so similar if they are to be characterized as an elder sister and a younger brother anyway? And, despite their lack of blood relation, Shannon and Kanon look quite alike. Even the Ushiromiya family don’t look as close to one another as Kanon and Shannon do to each other (by anime standards.) While I’d be willing to disregard this on the basis that most lower-class characters in Umineko have designs with more neutral colors, Shannon and Kanon look distinct from all the other servant- and working-class characters such that I wouldn’t ever hypothesize they were related.

So, my current guess for their arc is thus: a single servant of the Ushiromiya family is undergoing a conflict of identity, which they characterize as Shannon and Kanon. I don’t believe they have a split personality or anything like DID- by my guess, these are aspects of themselves they choose to personify and name, rather than separate wills/personalities. Shannon is female, older, and more strong willed. She is not bound to the Ushiromiya family through cowardice or cynicism. Kanon is male, younger, and more shy. He fears leaving the Ushiromiyas, but is obligated to his elder sister and must follow her when she goes. If I had to guess, based on Kanon’s character being centered on repression and self punishment, I’m inclined to postulate the greater person being discussed is transfem.

Again I could be totally wrong and I’m not actually spoiled on Kanon/Shannon’s role in the story at all. Hope this all comes off as respectful and not insane etc.

#logxx #umnk lb

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rawr-ily · 4 years

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A Stupidly Long Bokuto Analysis

CEO of thought dumping and calling glamorized rants “essays”

I already made a character analysis for my kin character (Oikawa) so here’s one for my favorite/ultimate comfort character :)

"The world" is a recurring theme with Bokuto. He has a strange habit of always looking at the bigger picture. By which I mean, he doesn’t really look out for little details. He's simple minded, so he takes things at face value. Tokyo isn't enough for him. Japan isn't enough. Asia isn't enough. He wants the world. He doesn't care if it seems like too much, or if it's unreasonable. He knows what he wants, and he's going to get it.

This is more noticeable in the manga. For example, there's the iconic "No matter what they say, we are the protagonists of the world" . Yes, I know Akaashi is the one the says this line, but it really mainly applies to Bokuto. We know Bokuto has this strange sort of charisma that makes him ridiculously likable to pretty much anyone. Now, I REALLY didn't wanna make this about Akaashi, but it seems like that's actually Furudate's intention. It's almost as though he didn't want to give us direct access to Bokuto's thoughts for most of the series. Instead, how did we get that? Akaashi. Akaashi is the narrator for Bokuto's thoughts. Bokuto is so random, so unique and strange, that it wouldn't make sense for us to have access to his mind. Yes, we get direct thoughts from him time to time, but Akaashi is the one who really tells us most of it. He's there to filter out Bokuto's thoughts because it would be too strange for us to understand. We would never be able to figure out Bokuto because he can't even figure out himself. That's technically Akaashi's "purpose" in the story. I don't mean that in a bad way though. I would explain more, but I wanna keep this about Bokuto as much as possible.

ANYWAY, we can sort of see Akaashi as an "extension" of Bokuto. When Akaashi says "we are the protagonists of the world", he is not talking to himself or the reader. He's talking to Bokuto, because he knows Bokuto wants the world. Another thing about this quote is that he begins with "No matter what they say..." This kind of made me to a double take. Why would someone say they aren't? But then I remembered in the manga, we get a scene of Bokuto running with some classmates. It was probably for a gym class of sorts. It's Bokuto's turn to set the pace for their run, and everybody's upset because he always goes too fast and too overboard. Bokuto doesn't really notice, and he goes forth anyway. However, after a while, he looks back and realizes nobody is running with him anymore.

Sound familiar? Kageyama's teammates left him in the same way Bokuto's did. They couldn't keep up, so they abandoned them. We're more familiar with Kageyama's past, so it's a bit easier to understand Bokuto's if you see that little parallel. I might be reaching a little here, but it's possible that people have told Bokuto that the world doesn't revolve around him in the same way Kageyama was mockingly called a king. It's a common thing said to people like Bokuto, who don't really understand much outside their own head. It's not a bad thing, but many people misinterpret it as arrogance or a disregard for others. Bokuto's charisma apparently didn't work for everyone, considering how annoyed his classmates were; I think it's a possibility that people made some snide remarks.

We also see that Bokuto is actually incredibly desperate for validation. He constantly brags about his amazing talent, always wants people to see the cool things he does, and thrives off compliments. He wants attention, and that's not a bad thing at all. It just means he wants people to acknowledge how great he is, and he feels happy when they do. That's really just scraping the surface of all that quote tells us, but I want to move on to something else.

Another recurring thing about Bokuto is his use of the word "ordinary" It seems that he doesn't really understand what the word means, but I think he knows its meaning better than anyone. Bokuto using the word first stood out to me when Fukurodani player a difficult match against another school in Nationals. I'm not too familiar with the timeline, so correct me if I'm wrong. Bokuto told the rest of Fukurodani that, up until that point, he was "an ace coddled by his team" and now he's ready to be "just an ace". He wants to be an ordinary ace, which seems quite strange. This is Bokuto, and wants to be ordinary?

Bokuto has a different understanding of "ordinary" than most people do. He's simple minded, not stupid. It's not that he doesn't think; he just thinks differently. He's that unique type of person who thinks out of the box by default. When most people think of ordinary, we think of boring, plain, normal. It's been given a negative connotation by most people. Bokuto doesn't listen to connotation.

Remember that he takes things at face value? This is an example. To us, ordinary is boring. To him, it's a goal. Bokuto sees ordinary as what things are supposed to be. He wants to be an ordinary ace. Aces are supposed to be the awesome, powerful stars of the team. Aces are supposed to be the best. He wants to be the best. Therefore, he wants to be an ordinary ace. It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to fully understand that entire bit, to be honest.

It's actually more clearly stated in one of the last manga chapters after MSBY vs. Schweiden. Akaashi interviews Bokuto for the manga company he works at, and Bokuto tells him that he has become "ordinary". Akaashi is confused and tells Bokuto that he has never been ordinary. Bokuto laughs and makes some remark about how Akaashi didn't realize just how ordinary he's become. We get a little throwback to Akaashi's 0.5 second thought process, and he realizes immediately that Bokuto doesn't use the word "ordinary" like he does. Even more impressive, he seems to also realize exactly what he means by it. Akaashi tells him that he (Akaashi) was mistaken and Bokuto is actually "super ordinary".

THIS PART TOOK ME A GOOD TWENTY MINUTES, AND AKAASHI DID IT IN 0.5 SECONDS. He's the real master at Bokuto analysis. Though Bokuto doesn't get enough serious background, so he's a difficult one to analyze. It's also much harder to put him into words? Again, he's a very unique character. He even has a surprising amount of duality in him. Though we as a fandom perceive him as an optimist, it seems his mood swings often force him into a state of overwhelming pessimism. I actually find it quite funny. It's almost like his left brain and right brain are fighting a battle, and left brain almost loses but summons the strength to momentarily completely overwhelm right brain before it takes back control. I got a very strange visual from that though.

Regardless, it just means I think his mind tries to balance out his naive optimism with intense flashes of pessimism. Bokuto gives his all to EVERYTHING. That's actually sort of an issue for him. If he's happy, he's VERY happy. If he's upset, he's VERY upset. He wants to be the best at all he doesbecause he just wants to have fun. He's not having fun when he loses, so he doesn't want to lose. It's so simple, but it's strangely inspiring. It's the straightforward answer to Tsukishima's question. Why do we push ourselves to be the best when we know there is no such thing? What motivates us? Our desire to win. What makes us want to win? Our desire to win is fueled by hatred for losing. Why don't we want to lose? We don't want to lose because it's not fun. Why isn't it fun? It just isn't. Bokuto doesn't try to dig for those answers. After all, why is anything the way it is? What does it matter? He doesn't care as long as he's enjoying himself.

I suppose that's one of the nice parts of being so simple minded. He's able to enjoy life to the fullest because he doesn't want to focus on things he doesn't like. That means his future character growth will be about having to do things he doesn't like because that's a part of life. It'll actually be quite sad to watch Bokuto grow up. What he needs to do is find a balance for all the duality in him so he doesn't need to give up his childishness or force out his mature side. If he can find a balance, it just means he'll be able to do both when he needs to. If he can do that, he'll get through everything life throws at him. He can still have fun.

He doesn't get enough serious screen time, so I can't really say anymore about him that can be reinforced by things from the anime or manga. This was only around 1.5K, so hopefully it was a pretty easy read? I still don't wanna edit this, so just tell me if things don't make sense! Also, please remember that Bokuto IS NOT AN IDIOT, SO PLEASE STOP CALLING HIM ONE IF IT’S NOT FOR COMEDIC PURPOSES. Thank you :)

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centrally-unplanned · 3 years

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Medium & Marketing for 90′s Anime Dubs

Today is Hayao Miyazaki’s 80th birthday, which made sure my dash was filled with Ghibli tidbits. A discussion of my personal favourite, Kiki’s Delivery Service, brought up its ill-fated original dub by Disney in 1998. Ghibli still didn’t have the courage yet to put their foot down on changes for international releases, and so there are a lot of alterations - the theme songs are changed to be anglicized, almost any “dead space” or quiet moments in the film have someone (normally animal sidekick Jiji the cat) improv lines over the scenes to liven them up, and in particular the ending is changed to be less bittersweet as Jiji, who in the original Kiki permanently loses the ability to talk to as a sign of growing up, regains his voice.

These changes slot neatly into the zeitgeist of all 90′s anime changes - a disregard for the property’s core appeal as they were bowdlerized for a western audience. Sailor Moon is an infamous victim of a similar process - at least Kiki took place in fantasy Europe, the Sailor Moon dub’s attempts to pretend that the show doesn’t take place in Japan were simply insane as they cut out or blurred every appearance of Japanese writing in the show, leaving reams of animation frames on the floor in the process.

(Tangent time: the greatest scene ever is one where, upon reading a note by Usagi, to prove it was her Minako/Sailor Venus comments “it must be from her, its written entirely in hiragana”, the simpler form of written Japanese compared to kanji, which Usagi as a running gag cannot write. So in the dub they just...blur out the text of the note, and have Minako comment “I had to read it with my imagination. It's all written in funny symbols!". I distinctly remember watching the episode live when I was 12 years old and going “wait what the fuck does that even mean?” and suddenly realizing that the show was changing its own script, it was a trip of a moment)

Like most people I do malign these changes, but I am actually here to partially defend them via contextualization. The idea that American audiences would have cared that the show was Japanese is pretty dumb, but what you often hear are statements like “kids in Japan appreciated Sailor Moon/Kiki’s Delivery Service just fine, they didn’t need to change it”. That is possible, but it mistakes why changes are being made to begin with - its not the “culture of children in the US vs Japan”, its intended market via the medium of distribution.

Kiki’s Delivery Service was released in Japanese theatres in 1989, and it was the highest grossing film of the year in Japan (about ~US$18 million, man do things change). Kiki’s Delivery Service the Disney dub, was....released on VHS in 1998. VHS releases and movie theatre releases aren’t really intended accomplish the same thing. Remember all those direct-to-video Disney sequels? Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride? Cinderella 3: A Twist in Time? Remember how they were all just garbage? Anyone looking back at them today cringes, with a few exceptions. But none of us cringed when we were 8! My partner is a huge Disney fangirl, and when she was young she didn’t even distinguish between the theatre release and the VHS sequels - it was all Disney, you just lined them up and played them in a row as the complete canon. Yes, these movies sucked partially because they were low budget, but they weren’t actually *that* low budget - and not the throwaways your memory probably tells you they were. Lion King 2? Made ~$300 million in net sales, almost as much as the original Lion King’s theatrical run.

What those Disney VHS sequels and Kiki share is the fact that their intended market was *only* children. That is the point of VHS - you put it on for your kids and then go make dinner. Its the virtual babysitter, the kids can loop it while reenacting every scene with their stuffed animals. Movies released in theatres don’t serve that role at all - the parents are paying $15 a head and they are trapped in their seats for the whole runtime. It has to entertain everyone, or you aren’t going to go, or at least not as often. VHS releases sucked because kids don’t care, they actually do enjoy the constant quippy lines and dumb jokes. That is equally true for Japanese kids - its just that Kiki’s intended audience wasn’t Japanese kids, it was “all ages” - a very different category.

The same is true for Sailor Moon, by the way. The idea that kids in Japan could “handle more mature themes like death” unlike American audiences doesn’t hold up quite as much when you look at Disney theatrical releases like the Lion King - Mufasa’s death pulls no punches, but kids didn’t mind. And Japan does have shows like Doraemon that are just as childish as the 90′s western cartoons you remember. Its that Sailor Moon’s audience wasn’t just kids.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon aired in March of 1992 on TV Asahi. Asahi was not a kids network, and Sailor Moon did not air in a kid’s block - instead in its “Anime Block”. It aired on Saturdays, at 7:00 PM. For most of its runtime, the 7:30 slot after was held by Slam Dunk, a hyper-serious basketball anime adapted from a manga in Weekly Shonen Jump. You think director Kunihiko Ikuhara was throwing in queer relationships and even trans characters, and every other villian was a half-naked seductress, because it was gonna really resonate with 8 year olds? Sailor Moon was for 8 year olds, yes...and for otaku. So, 15 year olds, lets not exaggerate here. But still, its hype, its success, came just as much from its teen and adult fans as much as its young devotees. Which was intentional - it was *marketed* that way. That's why it aired at 7:00 PM on a Saturday.

Sailor Moon’s original dub, on the other hand, aired on UPN at, yeesh, 6:30 AM?? Then on USA’s Cartoon Express at the much more reasonable 8:30 AM, and later on Toonami at 4:00 PM. All of these are kids slots, to watch over cereal or snacks before/after school while the parents are busy. You do not expect the adult in the room to be watching alongside the kid, or for teens to really be paying attention.

And to cut off the logical objection, a show like Sailor Moon was just not going to get a 7:00 PM Saturday slot in the US in the 90′s. Nor was Kiki going to get a movie theatre release in 1998 of any scale. Movie releases are expensive, Saturday slots are precious, the funding just wasn’t there for something so untested as Japanese anime. There was no demand in the west for it - that demand would only be created later, by a generation who grew up on, well, shitty Sailor Moon dubs and Kiki VHS releases. And what success in the media slots these shows and movies did have are shaped by those market niches.

I don’t want to be over-deterministic on this - at some point Cartoon Network rolled the dice on Cowboy Bebop and Full Metal Alchemist and it worked - maybe they could have done that in 1995 with like Neon Genesis Evangelion, who knows! And of course US children’s cartoons are, beyond market forces, burdened with regulatory moralizing that Japanese media does not have. But I do think these 90′s dub efforts should get the proper context for the constraints they were operating under, and why they existed at all, as they are criticized.

#kiki's delivery service #sailor moon #90's dub discourse never dies

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joshuahyslop · 3 years

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BOOKS

The last 10 books I’ve read:

1. Wolf - Jim Harrison I found this book in one of the little neighbourhood book exchanges that are all around Vancouver. They look like little log cabins and it’s a loose “take a book, leave a book” policy. I’ve liked some of Harrison’s other books as well as some of his poetry so I picked it up. It’s fairly well written but it’s one of the most depraved and depressed characters I’ve read in a long time. It’s like a darker more depraved version of “On The Road”. More misogynistic, more obsessed with sex and completely lacking of anything philosophic. One of the reviewers on the back cover said it was (paraphrasing) a poetic depiction of a joyful life. I guess I must have read a different book.

2. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon The first book of Pynchon’s I’d picked up. This was such an enjoyable read. I’ve steered clear of his books for fear of not being able to understand them. Every time I’ve talked about wanting to read his book “Gravity’s Rainbow”, I’ve been asked if I’ve read anything else by him. As if that’s a requirement. When I bought this book the teller asked me the same question. When I said no, he said “This is a good place to start.” I don’t know why that is, but now I’ve read one of his books and enjoyed it. I’ve eased into the Pynchon. I think I’m allowed to read another one now.

3. Joyland - Stephen King This was incredibly disappointing. I’ve read a lot of King’s books. They’re often hit or miss but they’re almost always enjoyable as brain candy. Books like, “The Shining”, “Carrie” or “Misery” are well written and suspenseful. It makes sense why he’s heralded as the King of Horror. But this one does not measure up. In fact, it falls very short of the rest of his work that I’ve read. I felt myself cringing at some of his dialogue. It was just so cheesy. Even though it was set in the 70′s, no one’s ever spoken like that. There’s very little suspense and the story itself isn’t very engaging. When you finally get to the action it’s only a couple of pages and then it’s done. It’s a very quick read, but definitely skippable.

4. The Truth About Stories - Thomas King A friend of mine who loves to read gave me a bag full of books to check out. This was one of them. It’s one of the CBC Massey Lectures and I love that series. I have a bunch of them already so I was excited to check this out. I also have King’s book, “The Inconvenient Indian” on my bookshelf in my “to read” pile. A pile that does nothing but seem to grow. But it’s still a ways down in the pile. So I thought I’d check out this little book because it’s only 5 essays and it would give me a sample of his writing. I’m very glad that I did. It’s so well written. It’s funny, it’s sad, it makes you think. If you care about stories, politics, religion, and the treatment of First Nations people by the US and Canadian governments, you should give this a read. I can’t wait to get to his book.

5. Deadeye Dick - Kurt Vonnegut In my last post I mentioned liking Vonnegut a lot and being surprised at how few of his books I’d read. It turns out I’m just very bad at using technology. I keep a Word document of all the books I’ve read to avoid reading the same book twice, accidentally. I’d tried using the “find” function and somehow did it wrong, so only a few Vonnegut titles showed up. As it turns out, this was the ninth book by Vonnegut that I’d read. That makes way more sense to me. I enjoyed this one a lot. It’s pretty funny and pretty sad. A good combination, if you ask me.

6. 69 - Ryu Murakami One of my favourite local used bookstores offers store credit if you bring in some books and they decide to buy them from you. You can either take cash or store credit. If you choose credit, you have to spend it all before you go. It’s fun. On this particular visit I had about $60 worth of credit. I’d picked the books I wanted and still had $14 left. They recommended this book. i’d never read anything by this Murakami (no relation to Haruki) so I had no idea what to expect but I was excited to check it out. I loved it. It takes place in 1969 and follows the path of some high school students looking to join or start some kind of counter-cultural movement. The two main characters actually reminded me a lot of my own experience in high school. I’ll be checking out more of his writing for sure.

7. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace Good lord. This was a mountain I’d tried to climb once before and failed. To have finally finished this book is no small feat. Standing at the top, looking back down I’m actually amazed I made it all the way through. It’s not that it’s an unenjoyable read. On the contrary. It’s very well written and quite enjoyable. It’s just that it’s over 1100 pages and contains 388 footnotes, many of which are several pages long and some even have footnotes of their own. At times it can feel like you’re reading two or three books at once. Another challenge is that there are at least 3 plots taking place all at once. Each story can jump ahead or backwards in time which can be tricky to track, PLUS there are character’s plot-lines that are introduced in great detail (one that comes to mind takes 11 pages to describe a young man addicted to marijuana anxiously waiting for his dealer to arrive) that are never again revisited. The three main story lines are loosely connected but the book takes its sweet time revealing that fact. All of that, mind you, and we still haven’t even mentioned the deep themes of addiction, suicide and capitalism that run throughout the book. I’m very glad I’ve read it. I usually enjoyed doing so. But if you’re not committed, if you don’t have some serious time to lean in, or if you don’t like his style of writing then perhaps you should steer clear. It’s an uphill climb, for sure.

8. Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things - Lafcadio Hearn This book caught my eye while I was taking my son for a walk. It was in the window of another one of our local bookstores, so I stopped in and checked it out. It’s a book of Japanese ghost stories and myths from hundreds if not thousands of years ago. The stories themselves are sometimes scary, sometimes funny, sometimes very confusing, but always enjoyable. Although the last three chapters completely disregard all things Japanese and consist of the authors philosophical rumination regarding Butterflies and the afterlife, Mosquitoes and the taking of innocent life (even when it seems to serve no purpose), and Ants and their altruistic existence vs our individualistic societies. There are other books in this series and I plan to check out at lease one more. I’ve always wanted to go to Japan so I’ve got a definite bias here, but if you like myths or ghost stories there’s a good chance you’d enjoy this book.

9. Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer I know I’m late to the party on this one, but this is a fantastic book. It’s one that I’ll be recommending for years to come. Its subtitle is: “Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants”. It is all of that and so much more. I truly loved reading this book. I took notes. I underlined. I had to stop to think and reflect. I’d definitely encourage you to do the same.

10. Masters of Atlantis - Charles Portis This book is hilarious. Very dry, very droll. It’s a tongue-in-cheek look at the people who organize and who believe in secret societies, cults and religion in general. I didn’t know what to expect when I started it. The only other book by Portis that I’ve read was True Grit. This book is absolutely nothing like that. It’s completely it’s own. The only thing it has in common is Portis’ sense of humour. I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything quite so dry as this before. Maybe something by S.J. Perelman or something like that. This book was recommended to me by M.C. Taylor from Hiss Golden Messenger so I was pretty confident it would be good. It’s safe to say I would never have picked it up without the recommendation but also, I’m glad that I did.

more soon, -joshua

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gascon-en-exil · 6 years

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I Liked Fates Before It Was Cool!: Conquest Part 3

Prologue

Opening Chapters

Conquest Part 1

Conquest Part 2

Chapters 21-Endgame, in which this turns into the end of a Pokémon game.

Chapter 21

This may just be the worst filler chapter in Fates, dull and forgettable in pretty much every way. This isn’t even the first time in Conquest that Iago has pulled his Faceless stunt against Corrin, and it’s still a dumb and poorly-developed source for a conflict. Why does Iago hate Corrin so much on this route anyway? Lilith also dies here, her death even more random and pointless than the one in Birthright. I actually had an idea for how they could have killed her off in Conquest and have it carry some actual emotional weight: have her take a killing blow from Takumi in Chapter 23. It would emphasize just how far gone Takumi is and tie Lilith’s sacrificial love for Corrin back into their Nohrian siblings’ love, particularly as Elise does take an arrow for Corrin back in Cheve. But nope, death by random Faceless it is.

Even the experience of playing this chapter is less challenging and more highly annoying, between the beefy Stoneborn stunning units and the Faceless hordes clogging the road to the end. I also hate how the rubble blocking certain paths up the stairs can be hard to see; at least once several of my units got stuck in a dead end because I couldn’t tell at first that the way I was sending them was impassable.

Before moving on, I should probably explain the Pokémon thing. Conquest’s lategame has always felt conspicuously methodical to me when compared with the other routes and with FE lategames generally. It reminds me very much of the typical (and infamously formulaic) experience of a Pokémon game, which end with a long and tedious trip through a cave that forms a physical bottleneck to the final area of the main story (this chapter) followed by sequential challenges against the Elite Four (22-25, with the four Hoshidan royals even faced in ascending order of age), a “surprise” fight against a regional Champion (26, with “surprise” in quotes because, just like with Hans and Iago, it’s rarely surprising that you have to fight them at some point), and then often a challenge against one or more otherworldly legendary Pokémon in the postgame (27 and Endgame, in which Corrin faces off against two incarnations of an insane dragon from another dimension). To contrast, Birthright’s final confrontations are more spread out and don’t even feature half of the Nohrian siblings, and the true climaxes are those that have been built up throughout the route. Revelation does throw multiple antagonists against Corrin in sequence, but in its tradition of imitating the endgame of Radiant Dawn each of them represents a different story thread getting hastily wrapped up to make way for the fight against Fates’s overall antagonist. This is not to suggest that Conquest’s lategame has no effective moments, but the deliberate scripting doesn’t help this route’s reputation for lazy plotting.

Chapter 22

I have two problems with this chapter, although one will take just a few sentences to resolve. The Dragon Veins on this map have their action described as “flatten a levee,” when what they actually do are destroy walls separating the different sections of the field. A levee is not a wall on land but an artificial embankment against a river or other body of water built to prevent flooding. They’re kind of a big deal in New Orleans, and their appearance and function do not remotely resemble the walls in this chapter. Weird word choice, localizers.

The other, more substantial problem I have here concerns Sakura and her supposed innocence. In a sense I appreciate that Sakura does here what Elise refuses to do in Birthright and takes up arms against Corrin; it highlights her resolve in spite of her characteristic timidity and helps differentiate the two little sisters in a more substantial way than the fetishistic anime tropes that they each apparently embody. I also appreciate that Sakura’s reluctance to fight comes through in the way this chapter is structured, in that she’s enclosed behind...”levees” healing her forces from afar and that you’re not required to fight her to end the chapter. What I take issue with is how easily the game casts her in the role of innocent victim after the battle, simply because Garon and his minions show up (from where?) and kill all the surrendered Hoshidans. Yes, this is a war crime and yet another demonstration of how terrible these people are and how we’re obviously going to be killing them later, but Sakura and even more so her retainers and Yukimura were earlier attacking the Nohrian army. This would have been a good point to demonstrate some genuine moral greyness in someone who gets nothing of the sort of otherwise (and that’s not even getting into her standing alongside Yukimura, a man revealed earlier in the route to be a bit sketchy himself), but thanks to Garon the scene is skewed in favor of flat villainy and justified outrage again.

Chapter 23

...Alright, I’ll be the one to ask it. Why does Hoshido have a Great Wall? It’s my understanding that, in contrast to Nohr pulling from over a half dozen Western European cultures, Hoshido is meant to be representative of solely Japanese culture - and yet when I think of East Asian countries with oversized walls I’m obviously not thinking of Japan. Perhaps some projecting on the part of the writers of the kind of defenses they think Japan would have had if it had been a large continental territory like Hoshido?

Regardless, I don’t have much to say about the specific content of this chapter. I’ve already remarked that Takumi’s arc in Conquest is well-executed, and his last stand atop a great wall overlooking a gorge in the setting sun makes for a fittingly dramatic end even before it goes all possession-assisted suicide. The deaths of his retainers have a bit of punch to them too, particularly since it’s become so customary on this route for Corrin to spare defeated opponents.

This policy along with the scope of this battle do however bring up a larger point I wanted to make when comparing routes. Both Birthright and Conquest end with Corrin’s army invading the enemy nation, conquering their capital, and deposing their sovereign along with various others who get in the way. There is though a strong contrast between the presentation of these two invasions, and they happen to involve this series’s varying representation of the scale of its wars and the forces under the player’s control. In some cases it’s understood that the characters that make up the playable cast, plus a few major NPCs like merchants, literally represent the entirety of their side of the conflict. In other cases the playable cast are implied to be merely the vanguard of a much larger army. This can sometimes get awkward, but most of the time it’s fairly clear-cut that, say, all of Blazing Sword follows the first model whereas Gaiden and its remake are evenly split between an army of the first type (Celica) and an army of the second (Alm post-Deliverance Hideout).

For basically all of Birthright and Revelation and even parts of Conquest Fates uses the literal one-to-one scale model, and that manifests clearly in Birthright’s endgame. Corrin’s army sneaks into Nohr, passing through a supposedly abandoned fortress and a river of lava to reach a succession of two secrets passages that allow them to infiltrate Castle Krakenburg. They could not be feasibly marching with a whole army at their backs, and as such the conflicts they face in Windmire play out either as ambushes, Corrin’s personal family drama, or quick surgical strikes against enemy commanders who are unambiguously killed off. Not so in Conquest, where even before Garon’s army joins up with Corrin’s there’s enough of a rearguard to secure the major military installations that they seize on the way to Shirasagi and also keep prisoners of war. Azura also alludes to rebellion among the army’s ranks, a concern that would be completely baseless were the player not meant to assume that their visible army was being followed by legions of unnamed soldiers. The effect of this is that Conquest feels much more like a, well, conquest, and there’s a greater consideration for the standard rules of engagement in wartime (and Garon’s callous disregard for them) to match the larger scope and less personal conflict. Sure, the Hoshidan royals are still crying that Corrin has betrayed them and they can’t be a family, but since Corrin doesn’t really know the Hoshidans in the same way as they do the Nohrians I don’t find that to be at the emotional core of these chapters.

Chapter 24

As natural as it is to feel sorry for Takumi for what he goes through in Conquest - exacerbated even further here after this chapter when Hinoka apparently forgets about him entirely when contemplating whether Corrin can keep their family together - Hinoka might be even sadder on a meta level. Here she is, a woman whose life has been defined since early childhood by the kidnapping of her beloved sibling forced to fight that sibling now siding with their own captors as they invade and conquer her home...and yet for the small amount of time the main story spends building up her character and motivations this confrontation carries all the emotional weight of a single-chapter boss and little else. The biggest character moments on this map are less about her and more about other royals: Azura steels herself to march on her adoptive home, Xander doubles down on the pragmatic rationalization of an abuse victim, and Camilla gets to do her performative violent flirtation routine with a side of Corrin smothering that actually manages to be kind of funny. Even the retainer banter that Hinoka excels in elsewhere feels bland in this chapter.

As such I don’t really have much more to add. This map’s gimmick is a clever expansion of one used in an early Birthright chapter at least. And, uh, the Hinokacopter I guess? I suppose the question of the day is whether that’s more or less silly than Camilla’s catwalk strut.

Chapter 25

Now that’s a less fine hunk of obnoxiously self-righteous man right there.

Intriguing foil and bara porn potential aside it’s not that I hate Ryoma, even in Conquest, but it frustrates me how unsubtle the writers were in their love for him. I recall reading meta once that Ryoma fails as a proper Camus because there’s never any acknowledgement that he’s fighting for the wrong cause, and I have to agree. Corrin tells him that they’re working to save Hoshido too in spite of appearances, but Ryoma’s suicide is still presented as an honorable tragedy that spares Corrin a painful choice that’s ultimately pointless since Iago and Garon try to kill them in the next two chapters anyway. Also, while Ryoma finally abandons his desire to drag Corrin back into the Hoshidan fold after being told that Hinoka is dead (but no reaction to Takumi’s apparent suicide - sensing a pattern there?) the rage that replaces it lacks the well-intentioned antivillainy of the traditional Camus. He’s just pissed off enough to kill Corrin in revenge for killing his sister...or rather stand there for ages waiting for you to finish the rest of the chapter. At least Xander’s passivity and nerfed stats in his final Birthright confrontation make sense in context.

The strange thing is that I have no moral problem whatsoever with the concept of honorable suicide, but this particular scenario makes me kind of hate that Ryoma does it anyway. He dies a hero for Corrin and Azura to cry over, nothing like the flawed but honorable (in his own way) individual Xander is acknowledged to be in Birthright. Ryoma’s final stand and death flatten his motivations from earlier in the route to the point where the player is not encouraged to examine them. His controlling and manipulative behavior from Chapter 12 go completely forgotten, and it’s not until this very chapter that he accepts that Corrin truly cares about and wants to be with his Nohrian family - because Corrin claims to have murdered Hinoka. (Side note: this is arguably the most Hinoka ever matters to the plot of any of the routes, yet another sign of the serial neglect of her character.) Ryoma is every bit as flawed and complex an antagonist or even an ally as Xander, but you have to dig at the story to understand that. This leaves me with a deeply unsatisfying impression of imbalance, not only because these two are the most clearly established foils among the royal siblings but also because it perfectly encapsulates the prevailing creator bias of Fates, a bias that the players were seemingly meant to accept at face value.

Chapter 26

*yawns*

This chapter and the last two may throw almost everything Conquest has to offer at you to really amp up the difficulty, but in terms of story Chapter 26 is just a speed bump to get to the big reveal at the end. Iago and Hans are still not remotely interesting villains, and nothing interesting comes of them here. Leo even gets the honors of killing Iago just as he does in Birthright. Actually, there is one good bit - the moment when all the siblings stand up to Iago and Hans and announce their intentions to kill them and how they’re going to get away with it, turning one of Iago’s usual tactics against him. It’s the most satisfying showdown with these two in any of the routes, in my opinion.

I think this would be a good time to bring up a theory I heard recently from a YouTube critic explaining how Iago and Hans’s obvious two-dimensional villainy could plausibly exist in-universe: as Anankos is using Garon to destroy both Hoshido and Nohr, it benefits his long-term goal to give high-ranking positions to destructive individuals who will not only gleefully kill off the opposition but will cause dissent and disruption among their own ranks through their blatantly awful behavior. This is likely a case of giving the writers credit for more than they deserve, but the Fates fandom is no stranger to having to do most of the worldbuilding work itself.

Chapter 27 + Endgame

I’m going to step back a bit on my criticism of Conquest’s formulaic lategame, because despite the rigid structure leading up to this finale and some shared story elements with Birthright’s endgame - the Yato power-up, the shattering of the Yato reversed by a conversation with the dead and the power of friendship, Azura’s death and continuing mystery, an all too quick smoothing over of the political situation following the battle - these chapters and Conquest’s ending are substantially better than I remember them from earlier playthroughs.

Let’s start with Xander. He goes from threatening to kill Corrin if their claims about Garon turn out to be a ruse to the first of the Nohrians to defy the newly-revealed slime monster masquerading as his father - for precisely the reason that he’s lambasted as an idiot with daddy issues on the other routes. Alone among his siblings he knew the real Garon long enough to understand what he was truly like, so it’s fitting that he’s the one to understand that they’re facing a monstrous imitation of the real man and then rally the others to join him. That’s a profound turnaround, and as such Siegfriend powering up the Yato really lands as a strong moment.

Then there’s the resolution of Takumi’s arc, which unlike with Ryoma’s two chapters ago doesn’t tidily push the reality of his feelings of loss and resentment under the rug because of the current circumstances. Corrin and Takumi get to reconcile in the setting’s equivalent of limbo, each acknowledging that their mistakes led them to this point. This does not, however, then resolve itself with the conclusion that Corrin chose the wrong path in the end; instead, they validate their decision in the face of a bright future for Nohr and peace with Hoshido (which will presumably involve a hell of a lot of diplomacy and trade agreements, but details...). I believe this was an important writing choice to make for the player, to allow for Conquest’s ending to feel like a proper resolution instead of a monstrous lie as Xander describes the war in the final cutscene.

And that cutscene, and the scenes in the Nohrian throne room preceding it - actual acknowledgement in the story of Nohr’s culture and class system at last! There’s even an oblique hint at the resource scarcity that Birthright spells out, that the Nohrians feel they must make war to support their country. As much as I would have preferred all this worldbuilding to be sprinkled throughout Conquest rather than crammed into the ending I’ll take what I can get. We have to live with friendship superpowers and easy diplomacy and, er, Camilla’s bouncy breasts to get there, but all the same the finale is a strong one.

Oh, and Azura...it’s easy to forget about Azura, considering she never explains in this route what her song will do in the endgame and she dies offscreen immediately thereafter. It’s frustrating that she has so much less presence on this route compared to Birthright when here she’s the one who directs Corrin on the path to invading Hoshido instead of coming up with any other kind of solution. Way to completely dodge any kind of responsibility for that decision, Azura.

Next time: ending and final thoughts on Conquest

#Fire Emblem #Fire Emblem Fates #Fire Emblem Conquest #FE14

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keywestlou · 4 years

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FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES COMES TRUTH

Paraphrasing Matthew 21:16…..From the mouths of babes comes truth.

This video a perfect example of a child speaking truth. Her Words: “You’re a disgrace to the world.”

Short. Ten seconds.

There may be another video involving black men attached. I was unable to separate the two. Disregard if it appears.

Some comments by those who viewed the Trump/little girl video: “She is the real deal. / The light of the world. / She’s our future. / I will follow her into hell.”

One for Trump! This is fake news.

It was part of a comedy show. An actor played Trump.

The video appeared initially early in May 2017. It was a clip from the show “The President Show.” Within a very short period, 250,000 had viewed it.

It was debunked immediately by the show’s producer, the actor playing Trump, Buzz Feed, and Huffington Post.

The video is back on the internet.

Though the substance of the video may be correct, the video itself is a phony. The President is entitled to have the world know it was not him.

A new lie was given birth yesterday. One concerning Kamala Harris. Similar to the one Trump used on Obama years ago. The lie: Harris is not a natural born citizen. Ergo, she does not meet Constitutional requirements to serve as Vice-President or President.

The birther lie all over again.

Harris’ parents were immigrants. However, she was born in the U.S.

There is no issue, except for Trump trying to use the argument as he did against Obama. It was a lie then, it is a lie now.

Trump is one bad guy. He is destroying the USPS in hopes of saving himself.

Trump has to recognize he is behind at the moment. Fear has to be setting in.

Therein lies the reason he is attacking mail in ballots and is in effect demobilizing the Post Office.

Pure manipulation.

The stimulus package has $25 billion allocated to prepare the Post Office for the unusual number of mail in ballots expected. Trump wants to kill the mail ins. It is assumed they will be primarily from Democratic voters. He wants to screw the system up so many of the ballots will not qualify.

The funny part of all this is that it is not the Democrats who initially recommended the $25 billion. The request first came from the Post Office’s Board of Governors. All Republican appointees.

Trump’s screwing around with the election system is obviously dangerous. A significant threat to democracy.

Today a major anniversary in U.S. history. On this day in 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered.

I clearly remember the day. As I did V-E day earlier. I was 10 years old. My father took me with him everywhere both days. Celebrations galore. People dancing in the streets. A lot of hugging and kissing. A lot of crying. Everyone exuding happiness.

Today bears another significance. August 14, 1936. Date of the last public hanging in America.

The event took place in Owensboro, Kentucky.

A day of partying. Referred to as a “Carnival of Sadism.”

Rainey Bethea was a 22 year old black man. He murdered, raped and robbed 70 year old Lischia Edwards. A white woman. He strangled her.

Bethea confessed.

A problem arose. The community was aroused. They wanted to actually see justice done. They insisted on a public hanging.

Kentucky law at the time mandated that execution for murder and robbery had to be held at a state penitentiary.

The public would be denied its pound of flesh were the execution so conducted.

The Sheriff was a white woman. Her husband was Sheriff. He had died 3 months earlier and his wife was appointed to complete his term.

Bethea’s trial a public spectacle also. Reporters came from every part of the country.

The prosecution opted to try Bethea only for the rape. Such permitted a public execution.

The trial was not needed. Bethea had already confessed to all 3 of the crimes charged. Never the less, he was tried before a jury. No testimony was taken. The jury had only one issue to decide. Whether Bethea receive a 10-20 year sentence or execution.

It took the all white jury 5 minutes to return the verdict. Execution.

The Sheriff was a mother of 4. It was her responsibility as Sheriff to “spring the trap.” The thought repelled her. She refused to do so.

Arthur Ash was a retired police officer. He was hired to pull the lever

The crowd assembled for the event was 10,000-20,000.

Phil Hanna was hired to oversee the event. He was the one who put the noose around Bethea’s neck. It was Ash’s responsibility to “pull the lever.”

When Hanna signaled Ash to pull the lever, nothing happened. Ash was drunk and failed to notice. Hannah had to yell “Do It Now!” to get Ash’s attention. The lever was then pulled.

The crowd cheered. They enjoyed seeing Bethea die.

Two years later, Kentucky abolished all public executions.

Cocktails at 7 tonight.

Enjoy your day!

FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES COMES TRUTH was originally published on Key West Lou

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