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moonshynecybin · 8 days

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what would you consider essential marc and rosquez watching? i don’t mean races but the stuff happening around it, there seems to be so much and idk where to start 😭

BIG ass question. i think it depends what you want outta this and how you best interact with content slash consume information. for me (not to brag but. winner of multiple historical essay writing competitions in high school. for context on the kind of freak i am bringing to the table here.) the research is kind of the fun part ! like i just started googling shit! i would go to inactive blogs and just search 'marquez' on them to see what would happen ! a lot of the times that works ! but it also takes a lotttt of time lol so i'll chuck some good resources your way, why not...

okay im not sure how basic we're talkin here but um. background. so the documentaries are, i think. the best place to start. theyre entertaining and offer a good amalgamation of clips to provide context for the actual racing. and like i know you de-emphasized racing (which is fine lol who cares) but it really is like the most important thing in the world to these fools and its a pretty visual sport so i think its at least helpful. like yes sepang IS about the press conference, but its also about the conversation they have ON the race track using their motorcycles. which is also somewhat a conversation that they HAVE been having all year long...

i'd start with hitting the apex (2013), its a GREAT introduction to the "characters" that does a lot of legwork to contextualize everything. lays the scene for where vale is at coming into his relationship with marc (both personally, wrt to marco simoncelli, and career-wise concerning his flop at ducati), and also how insane marc's whole deal is in general. the second half is. materially a study on what him entering the premiere class did to the sport as a whole. the introductory chapter in many respects

marc marquez: all in. MY introduction and blissfully free online. marc comma in his own words, with all the implications of that. a self-produced documentary where he is giving feedback about the edit of said documentary straight to camera and no less vulnerable because of it which is very marc imo. revealing both intentionally AND unintentionally about his whole deal with injury, vale, and his image.

motogp unlimited. im gonna be real kind of boring. like i would still watch it ! but do it kind of later, once you know the major players so youre automatically more invested. it doesnt really give you more than marc says himself in all in tbh, and i get the sense him and vale were NAWWWT interested in doing more than the bare minimum for it.

marc's rookie doc. free and subtitled on the youtubes. the first half of this is deadass just him wanting to fuck vale so bad while every comment from vale has me saying GIRL. out loud because the foreshadowing would be genuinely shocking if this was fiction. anyways the laguna seca of it all....

next i would hit up PODCASTS ! i think it makes sense after the documentaries, because these are all podcasts that arent strictly about rosquez (even if they are in many ways the main characters lmao) and personally it helps to put faces to lesser known names that might pop up before i listen to a purely audio product and get lost in the soup of sounds. the paddock pass podcast has two retrospective episodes about the 2015 season that are really good at context, oxley bom pod has a fun recent episode on valentino that i love, again just poke around a lil

videos. these guys have never filmed a lot of content together tragically. what i wouldnt give for someone to make them do an escape room. anyways ranch visit HERE (post explaining the ranch visit here). sepang presscon (sowwy) here. vale unhinged podcast interview the month after marc's documentary came out here. vale retirement interview where he gets asked about marc here. vale talking about asking marc to the ranch here. vale postrace at argentina 2018 here. UCCIO postrace at argentina 2018 here. theres a lot moreeeee just go on my blog archive and filter for rosquez and vids its easier lol

journalism. hello. okay so you should genuinely spend some time reading through mat oxley's stuff he can write (theres a paywall but you can run that shit through wayback machine). he also loves an insane comparison which i do enjoy.... again this is one that can be solved by googling his name and tacking on 'marquez' or 'rossi' or a specific time period or race it will probably reap some dividends. in terms of specific ass articles this one is kind of load bearing in terms of sepang and some of the interpersonal competitive tensions at play. that being said there are manyyyyyy crazy interviews and snippents of articles from other journos floating around motogp tumblr (like literally too many to link) adn its fun to dig around to find them, but mat oxley gets a shoutout because i was reading this article TODAY !

other content. honestly one of the best resources I'VE found for plotting out the arc of their relationship is @kingofthering's everyrosquezpodium series. you can REALLY see it play out lol. also her tagging system rules she very neatly lays out years and races... so if something jumps out at you, CLICK ITTTT ! also all of @ricciardoes fave presscon moments series. insane.

all this to say a small little rpf fandom like this rewards some digging! i would just recommend following narrative threads that interest you ! its also a small fanbase that is pretty research oriented, so if youre ever confused about somethin, just shoot an ask or run a search on someone's blog (@kwisatzworld has endless vale resources and @batsplat is one of the most thorough researchers ive ever seen, for example) like for real theres so much... i also have a primer that i made forever ago that has some links on it so you can peruse that if you so wish. but frankly a lot of it is just using those research muscles and being sufficiently deranged enough to be screenshotting reddit threads at one am so you can post them to tumblr because they mentioned marc and vale in the same sentence and that lit up some of the neurons in your brain

(and i know you said outside of races but i think theyre good benchmarks as turning points soooo you should do some diggin on laguna seca 2013, jerez 2015, argentina 2015, ASSEN 2015, sepang 2015 obvi, argentina 2018, and misano 2019. those are the big tentpoles of insane rosquez relationship drama imo. i mean theres many more but. im limiting myself.)

#i also. found stuff bc i did a lot of digging around in blogs archives from 2013-2015. but this was because i was unemployed #and my migraines made reading books (my FAVORITE THINGGG) kinda hard for like 6 months #so i was acting like a border collie that hadnt been walked in two weeks but like. mentally. and we got here.#tumblr didnt hurt my head so much NOOOO idea why #motogp #callie speaks #asks #rosquez

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your-local-uwu-artist · 1 year

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its fitting its kirby day cause today my animation on youtube reached 1k views <3 i really dont have the words to describe how thankful i am~

anyhow some sketches i got and bits from my curretn wip video essay (im more then halfway through my initial draft!!!) the fic "being a knight is easy" by @/azzie_tangerine under the cut

anyway i wanna talk more about my process on my curretn wip, bassically to make iteasier on me i diecided to just do a re-read taking notes of litterally whatever comes to mind along the way, some of it is complete unrelated nonsense, some of it is just noting a specefic thing i liked, some are vague start ups for something to think more into, and others are more fledged out paragarpahs of anaylsysis, bassically i was just typing in the notes app but now im switching to google docs cause it keeps lagging sdafnksd anyway once i finihs the main first draft then ill start working on organizing everything and cutting out the side rambles, after its more organized i can work on more actual anaylsisi writing, decideding when an excerpt or quote is needed or not and actually making it a script, im not sure how many drafts ill have

anyway, heres the snippets ive found that are more comprehensive

"we've reveiewed hw the battles are written this one is very different as kriby is feeling confident now but there is a snippet of text in it i want to bring to attention

"Fluff said it was okay to be forgetful, it was a part of him. And sometimes, accepting something won’t work is better than trying to force it… right?"

i would like to note the word acceptance and the phrase "it was a part of him" sense are other protag has a part of him he needs to accept, its small and aubtle but it really neat how are 2 povs segments are so intertwined" (note on battle scene in chapter 15)

"okay also this part is very much a me thing but i really want to point it out because it would be a fun scene to adapt to a visual medium, probably animation rather than comic but i love a challenge but there's a scene or two where metaknight talks about knight stuff to kirby while they like, go through different stances, the point is it would be super fucking fun to adapt to animation, if i do ever adapt this fic as a comic or something than i do thing the dialogue of this scene would probably be one with more changes sense in a written medium this had more writing to like, start the scene where as in a visual format it would be more seamless for the act to have less words to start it and expand and shorten some parts of meta's dialogue to match with the comic flow, as word bubbles are very much a part of comic art" ( i didnt note what chapter it was form god damn im gonna have a lot of editing to do later)

"i think one thing this whole fic does really well BUT ESSPECIALLY helps scenes that need more tension in them is the variety in length of paragraphs, okay i really hate when people complain about fanfics without paragraph gaps cause like, i get it the writer is just tryin to get their ideas down and share them and honestly fuck it i know im in the minority here but ive always found that often these fanfics arent at all bad because i can feel that the author cares aout it and had an idea and all that, BUT.... i do think that paragraph gaps are a storytelling tool on their own. its like an extremely watered down version of panel layouts, emphasis on extremely watered down because panel layouts are a LOT like a LOT a LOT, so much more than some people realize but it has a similar effect in the sense that it impacts the sense of the passage of the time and it creates a sense of rhythm but most of all it can create emotion and communicate through the empty space" (on the first battle scene i think)

#kyuchat #kirby

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beautifulpersonpeach · 2 years

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Repost: Ask on BTS Paving the Way

Anonymous: Hey bpp. You talked a little bit about the 'BTS paved the way' discourse on your pinned post but I'm curious to see - read? lol - more on your thoughts about it. If youve talked about it before, can you pls link? Since you might not want to discuss/rehash this at all lol. I got curious because this discourse seems neverending and i just watched a yt video essay abt it. Imo, both sides of the spectrum - army and kpop stans -seems to be missing each other's points. Like, i think a lot of kpop stans havent paid attention to what bts have contributed to kpop and theyve dismissed armys arguments entirely and i think a lot of armys havent been into kpop and kpop history to definitively say the stuff I've seen them saying. A lot of the arguments and statements are very inflammatory too and while I agree with what armys are saying, the language they use isnt going to make kpop stans listen - i mean, the ones who arent blinded by their hate for bts/army anyway lol like a lot of kpop stans think when army say bts paved the way/bts popularized kpop, they always think army mean popularized it in the west. When we have receipts of them doing spectacularly globally, especially in places like india where they seem to have exploded since dynamite. Theyve also broken a lot of records in japan, where kpop is already popular but still seem to have a lot of trouble penetrating mainstream bec theyre very insular. They also think that we mean 'first to xxx', which isnt really what we mean at all. And a lot of army seem to dismiss what older kpop groups have achieved too and just like to prop up bts while putting down other groups and dismissing what theyve achieved for the genre. I just think since a lot of armys are in kpop only for bts -same tbh - we tend to be ignorant of the genre as a whole, which isnt good bec we're always arguing x member is the best in the industry or even bts is carrying the industry on their backs, which dismisses a lot of great artists that are doing great work like solo artists like taemin. Like, I'm an army and I'm not a "stan" of any other kpop artists but the whole argument just makes me v v uncomfortable. I guess i still haven't adjusted to stan culture since i've never been a fan of any artists like i am of bts - to the point of joining the fandom and really immersing myself in it - so the intensity of it is still jarring to me. I know it happens with big western fandoms like taylor swifts too but i think i'm still old school when it comes to being a fan of a musician, you listen to the music, rave about it to friends and buy/stream the music and go about your day.

Hi Anon,

Anon, I sympathize completely and not to harp on you here, but my first instinct reading this was “who cares?” - this is generally how I feel about this topic whenever I see it, so not knocking you specifically here. And I’d just like to remind everyone there’s an active, senseless, and deadly war raging right now in Ukraine. Please donate and/or pray for Ukraine if you’re able to.

(And then there’s the leader of Stray Kids who is probably a bigger ARMY than me at this point)

This is not me dismissing the gripes of stans of 1st and 2nd generation groups (the usual suspects), this is me saying that what I’ve seen of this discourse is huge swarths of people engaging in an elaborate exercise in collectively missing the point. And yes I’m also referring to those splitting hairs over the semantics of what it means to pave a road. (Heaven help us). And you already allude to this in your ask, anon.

The phrase: 방법을 만들다 which is what a lot of Koreans have used to describe 'paving the way’, is colloquially used to mean 'chart a course’ or someone showing how something can be done.

If this were a normal conversation with normal people and not k-pop stans, it would be enough to point out that yes, BTS was not the first k-pop group to step foot outside Korea or in the US, but BTS is the one group that has gone farther than any k-pop group has before i.e. created the new path. It’s really that simple. BTS has become a household name globally without doing a single show at Coachella nor having any of the mediaplay seen for other groups that attempted to fully break into the US market. The fact that Korea’s military enlistment laws (which before BTS were enshrined as basically unchangeable) have been modified at least partly on their behalf (and for the benefit of any idol who meets the criteria) and that BTS is the first k-pop group to receive a Grammy nomination, has created a new tier, the highest one yet, of what is possible for k-pop artists.

BTS is the biggest group in the world. They rival Coldplay according to Coldplay. Before BTS, the reality is that this ambition was not even within the realm of possibility for much of k-pop. Even with BTS breaking the records and gaining the influence they have, k-pop is still considered to be niche in some circles, though there is undeniably more visibility and investment brought to the genre since BTS started snagging headlines. Some people still hope BTS will go the way of Psy and BoA who were a fad on the Western landscape for a minute then essentially faded into obscurity. But so far, that’s not what has happened, and everyone is paying attention to see what BTS is doing right, that perhaps other groups can emulate.

BTS won’t be the biggest group in the world forever, but the chances that the next biggest group is a k-pop group, is significantly higher now because of BTS.

La fin.

It’s true some ARMYs can be downright disgusting with how they throw around BTS’s accomplishments and sometimes ignore, dismiss, downplay, or just straight up shit on older groups who made the first moves into Western spheres, whenever this topic comes up.

But a part of me understands them. When BTS won the TSA award in 2017, it felt like hell to be on Twitter and I wasn’t even an ARMY at that point. I did a search through my old screenshots and found more than 15 k-pop fandoms spent weeks shitting non-stop on BTS and ARMYs about how useless it was to win at the BBMAs. It was a non-stop barrage of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, all the -isms you can think of related to POC musicians. Though of course BTS was not the first group to go to the US, all of a sudden, k-pop stans were convinced BTS had 'sold out’, abandoned their heritage and were pandering to 'white colonizers’ (sound familiar?). I started calling myself an ARMY the next year (2018) and as I’ve said already, I was reporting things almost constantly. It was hell.

You’re right this discourse seems never-ending because it is never-ending. Remember you’re dealing with k-pop stans who will argue with you that water isn’t wet if it means something positive for their group and some ARMYs are just as bad. Whenever I see people arguing about what paved the way I just mute that whole conversation. I sympathize with you feeling uncomfortable about this topic. I’d like to suggest doing what I currently do which is to not waste a single moment of a single day worrying about something that’s already obvious and settled. This particular discourse is the perfect example of a time sink imo, because really, who cares?

Originally posted: March 18th, 2022 1:35pm

#bts army #fandom #paving the way #bts paved the way #repost #kpop #kpop fandom

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graph100 · 5 months

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cubing community the typa shit to ground you back to reality. like im a queer little fuck obsessed w irregular art jazz and such and like i wanna find out if i should spend 25 usd for plastic cubes and they hit me w the

wide aspect ratio

depth of field

good lighting

short videos

choppy editing (sometimes)

smooth shots

cisgender heterosexuality (not directly stated, heavily implied)

regularness

like that shit feels so regular (neutral connotation). like. whats with all the dudes. like the guys. why are there 12 y.o. kids who arent doing cringecore cringe. these videos, theyre of a sensable length. there are european accents, but they arent gay asf

watching the yoo cube guy (i forgot his name sorry) is so humbling to me cause like.. his stuffs so like.. regular guy shit. and like go off for it. just a tonal whiplash from watching a 2+ hour video essay art piece about orson wells (welles? idk. the movie guy).

shit got me fucked up going from watching videos about big transgender to best budget 5x5 2023

definitely wish there was more representation in the cubing community. like we got plenty of women and non-white people but wheres the fags? wheres the trans mfs? i need more video essays on rubiks cubes. cubing historian goes hard asf

cubing community if personified the type to not get modern art, but still be fine with like jackson pollock being taught to kids. thinking that homophobia is bad but not really doing anything abt it type beat. pronouns in bio exclusively during 2020-2021 type beat. cant tell if i love it or hate it.

i think that the things mentioned above aren't necessarily good things, but i don't think that they're terrible wrongdoings. just wish there was more spice tho. it doesn't really matter. but i guess all representation doesn't really matter. like, it's not the end of the world if all art is portraits of white ppl, but like it kinda fucking sux being not white and only seeing white people paintings (note: im white this is just what ive heard is true dont kill me)

i mean shit, if the little 20-30-smth cishet man dude guy tells me that the funky magic cube is good, thats what i came here to find out. i just think that there are bigger possibilities.

ordered a 5x5 today (yesterday maybe. its 3 am) so maybe ill review it. yall'll be the only ones who know about like me me (im not really out). maybe its like representation steganography.

#representation #queer #trans #cubing #rubiks cube #magic cube #魔方 #wishful thinking #im kinda a sad person rn #depressed atm #this was meant to be a silly little joke post #graph100 originals

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ibolyafagyi · 1 year

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most of the times i write something (whether its a post that a few ppl will see or my private diary entry!) theres a need to finish off with a moral imperative or "this is what i need to do for this goal". me writing right now also has this intent lurking. i guess i started writing out stuff both on the internet or for myself with mostly this goal, not just to communicate but to change something, and it stuck around as a general rule.

but i feel like it also connects to and feeds into a general vibe of excessive productivity orientedness. i am always fixing something, even when theres nothing in particular to fix, or the problem/situation is not ripe enough, not definable enough for fixing. meaning my feelings about them (or what id like the situation to be) arent really developed and defined yet. the impulse to do something about it >> feeling the situation out patiently.

when someone hurts me, it is *my* job to asap understand my feelings and organize them and communicate and mediate and get to a conclusion etc. "you have to do what you can do, whats within your control." my feelings dont really get a chance to breathe before i want to get to fixing "them" and their cause. my anger is always viewed as excessive, unnecessary. (family reasons?)

i have to do whats within my control to be in control of the situation, and then if im out of control, its always at least partially my fault (the nagging feeling of "i could have done more!!"), my shortcoming, which again ill have to work to fix. i had an ed when i was 15-16 (never sure how to phrase this cuz it feels more like i got into disordered eating but that doesnt seem healthily phrased enough) -- in any case it was an exercise in controlling what i can and getting a very visceral sense of control.

i was watching kennie j. d.'s video about love island 4 and she talked about the dynamic of a person being emotionally sensitive, getting shit for it, then wanting to turn that trait into a strength by becoming a sort of savior, fixing other people who are more emotionally immature or closed off, and who they see as in need of their help. treating other people as projects. (dont do that.) i did do that! but another way ive tried to deal with this discomfort around being sensitive is the fixing-oriented attitude towards my feelings.

when covid started i was still fairly fresh out of high school and needed to do something about my mental health, seemed like i was painfully trying to skirt around insecurities all the time. i wanted to face them and got down to diary writing. it was sorta liberating so i thought oh if i just do this, confess my insecurities and go on a continual hunt for my ways that i perceive as faulty, i will eventually fix everything about myself and "will function normally". i dont even know if this sounds weird, it has been my thinking for a long while.

but it doesnt pay off well to be in a constant state of "im faulty, i need to eliminate my faults". like a machine. it served me in some way but its not a good attitude. im not my job. im not my project to perfect and eventually finish. (read rfq's essay isolation is easy living is hard.) neither me or the world is objective -- is somehow an attractive phrase. we are just changing. its not finishable.

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i-did · 3 years

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hi hello i couldn't sleep last night so i was scrolling thru all ur asks and stuff and ur opinions and analyses are so interesting!!! and then afterwards i was thinking about what u were saying about mlm smut and i'd also been thinking about such things a little bit recently bc like.....at a certain point it becomes quite clear that the vast majority of smut-writing is just imitation. like there's the sex noise verb list and all and the whole general mechanics of the sex and those things just .... replicate over and over. and the whole thing w people writing mlm vs wlw smut regardless of their own sexual orientation..... like i feel like a big part of that is just a self-perpetuating thing. like if u have not had sex and u r getting all ur (pleasure-related) sex ed from fandom (even if u do watch porn, that doesn't rlly tell u how to describe stuff? idk) regardless of What fandom , the majority is going to be mlm smut. which is itself majority imitation of other mlm smut, imitating and imitating back to whoever knows what the first smut fanfic was etc. there's just way More to mimic than there is on the women side of things. which then becomes a self-perpetuating thing, bc the mimicry continues and generates more and more. and---if there are fundamental misunderstandings of anatomy involved---those self-perpetuate as well. and maybe even exaggerate. and yeah. does this all make sense? idk i was just thinking about it. like all the stereotypes and stuff continue bc writers are getting their inspo from other writers rather than their own brains. or something. idk!!!!! it's just all... divorced from reality? bc words. or something!! i hope u get what i'm trying to say. just thoughts i've been thinking. anyway i think ur thoughts are cool. and ur writing. ok bye have a good day!!

Okay yeah this is kinda messy but hope u see this, uhh yeah I think you're right about the echo chamber effect fr about stuff. I think it's a mix of projecting too sometimes. talk more under the cut and also link to a video essay since I love video essays.

Here’s a video that sort of touches on this topic:

“Gay fanfiction” by Sarah Z. (has CC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8E_C00dKwI

This video begins to talk about fetishization at the end, but also… not really. The words “gay fanfiction” is used as a catchall, when really gay fanfiction is largely mlm written by non-mlm.

Fandom is a largely women's space dominated by the female gaze in a media industry world that is dominated by men and the male gaze. I'm really glad women have this space to explore creativity and queerness, and I don't expect the female gaze to go away, but I am still ultimately bummed out I can’t read most fanfic or interact with most fandom spaces without having fetishization in my face.

So about 80% of fandom is women, and most of those women aren't straight, but 90% of those women prefer mlm ships. Why don’t they prefer wlw ships? Well definitely part of it is the fact that queerbaiting is centered around white straight men, and then there is also the fact that women tend not to be written as well charcter wise. But the fact still remains that you get jerjean getting priority over Layla and Alvarez who are in canon just as much and are a canon wlw couple who actually interact as well as Alvarez could likely be a woc because of her Hispanic last name. Korasami doesn’t get nearly as much hype as zuko and saka, despite the fact that they are 2 fully dimensional characters who canonly kiss and hold hands, something the creators fought for and ended up having to sacrifice another reboot for.

I do believe the fandom echo-chamber is largely responsible for… a lot of things, like you're saying. But what's interesting is that the complaints I've heard about visual porn from non mlm in the fandom space is that they can’t get off to it because its for the male gaze and misogynistic usually. But they also don't seem to notice how the mlm smut circles has the female gaze and is also… almost always mlm. If it was a pure anatomical not knowing thing, I get that, but I also think that leads to the question of “then why the male body for porn, and not your own? The one you know and are familiar with?”

I know some people want to get outside of their own body for porn and don’t want to think of their own anatomy at all, but overall I'm still uncomfortable. If an anglo said “well I watch porn of only Mexicans so I don't self insert” I'm gonna be like … hhhh in a similar way. I understand people “like what they like” but I wish they also noticed said patterns in the first place. I understand the t4t tumblr porn circle, and how it's different from cis people who only watch trans porn.

I actually wished that instead of fandom focusing on mlm ships where some asshole guy hits on bottom troupe charcter for top troupe character to save, was instead… a wlw character experiencing said shitty getting hit on and other wlw swooping in. what's interesting is fandom writes a lot about misogynistic experiences without often realizing it. Ive read fanfic where guys get called sluts for sleeping with people or called bitch for speaking their mind, these arent things men usually experience, but rather women. Fandom has a lot of internalized misogyny and also queerphobia imo. Women characters often get pushed to the sidelines and men become the canvas for female fans to project onto.

There is this natural inclination to mlm. When people are talking about “gay shipping” or “gay books” or “gay feels” or even just “gay” mlm is what’s largely in mind. I honestly am kinda saddened by this because if gay fanfiction was really solely about writing more to feel represented, then you would see a lot of bi and ace and lesbian rep, but this isn't the case. Queer women are seriously underrepresented, and I want to hear their stories and read them in fanfiction as well as published. 50% of lgbt literature is mlm, and of that its largely written by women. Becky Albertalli, Rainbow Rowell, Maggie Stiefvater, are the YA big names and are all women writing mlm. Red white and royal blue is written by Casey McQuiston and Captive prince (which is not YA) is written by C. S. Pacat, who is non-binary, but is also TME and not mlm. These are all the big names in mlm lit, behind them is some gay men, but honestly their stories aren't preferred, they're not the right “flavor” for the consumers usually, who are largely women. In general YA consumers and authors are women, but I wish that they… just wrote about women too. I think there is a certain… snowball effect to the overrepresentation of mlm representing the whole LGBT community that leads to fetishization, as well as misogyny playing a factor in: less women characters being written well to write fanfic on, when they are written well they're taken less seriously or the audience struggles to relate to them, they're less marketable then men.

Idk I never feel “seen” or “represented” by any of the books above, which don't address boyhood and manhood and queerness intersecting really, and AFTG doesn’t either. I relate to AFTG as a trauma victim who has experienced a lot of what many of the characters go through and have gone through in the EC as well as them just overall being very well written characters, but I don't relate to it as a mlm really. I've never seen like.. gay voice or being straight passing or femphobia or how boyhood can be affected from a young age by those around you sensing you're ‘other’ or if you didn't experience this you feel outside the mlm community. Let alone sub cultures like bear and leather and pup, at most you see the word “he's such a twink” in fandom which... i fr hate non mlm using that word because it's usually used to replace the f-slur essentially, used derogatorily or to call him “such a bottom” and stuff like that. It’s like a joke or an insult.

Long story short, idk mang this was a ramble and I think I'm coning down with something. I wanna see more queer women rep and women authors writing about being a queer woman too. I think it's a complex web of fetishization and a bit of forbidden love yaoi culture (or it used to be in the BOYXBOY days) as well as misogyny on an industry level, creator level, as well as reader/consumer and fandom level. I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to explore other peoples stories and what we read has to be segregated, “only mlm are allowed to read and write mlm, only wlw are allowed to read and write wlw,” but I also think author’s intent and audience and background is telling, as well as overall statistics. Like about an hour ago I was looking for cookbooks in spanish or in english, and I was looking for some mexican food cook books, but I had to look for them using words in spanish because otherwise what came up was a bunch of “fiesta party, easy as uno dos tres authentic cooking!” and I was like… hm. Since I could tell they were marketing to anglos. (also the author’s last names were like michelle smith, james cooper, and this could be for a variety of reasons, but I trust Hispanic names more tbh and deadass would look at the authors pictures and if they had other books in Spanish or what their specialties were.)

anyways. not sure how to end this. uhm if anyone has any book recs (my to read list is like 500 books tho no joke) preferably not YA white mlm written by a white lady, hopefully queer women written by queer woman, LMK, I need more wlw and queer women stories on my list. I have a decent amount but always looking for more. I kinda wanna link my goodreads or my storygraph but I also don't want to get doxxed and it has my legal name on it so.

Also, I'm dyslexic and using spell check but if there's like some wild typos my b.

#ask #fandom politics #fandom culture #fandom psychology #mailob

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asuka--langley--soryu · 3 years

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hey do you know any blogs/sites etc that „explain” nge episode by episode? not the plot but rather the symbolism and themes

oh man anon I dearly wish I could say yes but unfortunately if something like this exists then I don’t know about it :/ instead what I can offer are some links to some meta/analysis/essays and hopefully that might help or at least give you a place to start?

so there is always the evageeks wiki which can provide a basic amount of info on some thematic elements, and at the very least is reasonably good for lore explanations. I feel kind of eyeroll about evageeks and their general community perspective, but if you need a good jumping off point i think this might be useful for that.

when i first started this blog there was a user called ritsumaya who put out some realllyyy interesting and in-depth meta. they deleted a while ago unfortunately but i believe most of their stuff as been archived at @ritsumaya2. None of the posts are tagged or organized in any way so it’s a little hard to navigate but worth perusing/searching through imo.

Someone did reupload their analysis of asuka specifically in a slightly more readable format so I’ll link that here separately. I 100% rec checking it out, it has some really really good thoughts on her character and informed a lot of my own interpretations back in the day. I do think they go a little too into the pathologizing angle which (if it wasn’t clear from my last post lol) I don’t agree with and largely ignore, but, aside from that, I think it’s super interesting.

in terms of other blogs, off the top of my head qmisato and adamworu put out good meta p often and also have organized tagging systems, so you might want to look at their stuff. i’m gonna glance through my archive and tag some of the meta ive rb-ed in the past, and will try to consistently tag it from now on so as to have somewhere to reference in the future. Plus I probably should have been doing that already but im like yknow a big carnival idiot and consistently cannot keep organized no matter how potentially beneficial it would be for me :)

There are some papers on nge in my thesis sources drive, so if youre looking for something a lil more academic/theory based then you could check those out. Specifically I recommend the Ortega and Napier essays. Link for that’s here.

theres def other blogs on here im forgetting, as well as just other sources in general. pls feel free to drop recs in the replies if you have em!! this was just the stuff i could pull from the top of my head/knew where to find so its by no means comprehensive and i am by no means the like end all be all in nge meta archiving. also, as usual, i’m not sanctioning 100% of every word written in the things I rec, so dont hold me to their opinions.

i hope this helps at least a little bit!

(ps: ik reddit has analysis threads or whatever but i’ve never read anything on there id recommend so ymmv on that front )

(pps: also ive never watched any of those youtube video essays or whatever about nge and never will [im just like instinctively repelled by anime youtubers that arent miss watchmojo dot com top 10 list lady] so i have literally no idea about their quality on any level. ik they exists and maybe could be helpful to you if you prefer a non-written resource?)

#nge #evangelion #asks #meta #nge meta #the watchmojo thing is both a joke and not. i dont think theyre good and rarely agree w them #but my friends and i used to watch them obsessively #otoh i have nothing really against anime yters i just cant make myself watch that kind of thing #but im really very picky about youtube content #Anonymous #mine

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changbeens · 3 years

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breaking hiatus for the second time today to talk about TO1 formally TOO. the name/brand change has happened for two reasons and in this essay i will explain them

firstly, this is gonna sound harsh and i really am sorry. i know TOO has meaning and fans are attached to it, but the group is owned by cjenm and they dont care about your feelings. they care about money. from a business standpoint it is a terrible name for a group and they've finally realised it. stick TOO in any western search engine and its not gonna be the group that comes up first. if people cant find them without having to add extra words (new fans arent going to immediately know ten oriented orchestra and yeah adding 'kpop' after it is easy but you shouldnt have to add words to find stuff), they're going to give up. i'm a marketing student, TOO is awful for seo (search engine optimisation). cjenm want to make money, its simple

secondly, the group has been in limbo for months due to cjenm and n.ch both being amateurs at doing anything and not being able to work together effectively. rebranding right now gives cjenm and TO1 the opportunity to come back fighting and this is potentially the best thing that could have happened for them (think minx rebranding as dreamcatcher). they could have gone the opposite way and called time on the group but cjenm is giving them another shot and rebranding distances them from n.ch by launching them as a new group. its also possible that n.ch have some kind of monetary gain by contract from anything branded TOO which might explain things such as videos on youtube being deleted etc, cjenm wont have to give them anything for things branded TO1. thats my own personal speculation though, not fact

and to any TO1 or JO1 fans mad about how similar the names are, stop it. JO1 are a jpop group, TO1 are a kpop group. cjenm own both of them (JO1's label is a cj subsidiary). both groups can exist in the same timeline, its totally okay. think of them as distant cousin groups

#to1 #too #ten oriented orchestra #and i'll tag #jo1 #incase there are jams that need to see the last para

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tigerdrop · 3 years

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Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

#asky #careposting

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bloodbenderz · 4 years

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this is possibly a dumb question and a weird one, so feel free to ignore! but i was reading one of ur analyses (on the lok anarchy article) and that was a lot of fun to read and i thought u made v salient points! i was wondering if u had any advice on how one can get better at coming up with their own analyses and stuff like that. maybe it’s a lack of brain cells or maybe it’s a part of my brain that i haven’t flexed in years, but i want to be able to do that (i think it’s called “critical thinking” lmao) but cannot fathom how to do so to the point of being able to think and organize analyses/essays like this. again this is a weird q with an answer that will vary/not exist depending on who’s asked, but i dig ur analyses so here i am

thank u sm! this is a super broad question but im just gonna assume u mean literary analysis cuz thats what this blog is about (usually)

my first piece of advice is to read nonfiction. for me nonfiction has always been the best way for me to build a Framework of critical thought (for example, learning about science and its history gives me the tools to criticize modern scientific education and pop science) aside from teaching u abt historical/scientific fact, these writers will usually have ways of thinking abt things that u will not have considered before, and as u follow them thru their argument, u will not only understand Theirs better but u will also start understanding better how to formulate ur own. u can find whatever format works best for u, like, podcasts/audiobooks or print or ebook or whatever, but find some content abt something that interests u and go for it!

when it comes to fiction, i would say my advice is to both consume a lot of fiction AND ALSO consume a lot of analysis of it. (also remember that ur mind basically functions on You are what you eat. Dont spend too much time watching trashy dramas or reading fanfiction. read/watch/listen to a VARIETY of content) as u consume content, ask urself WHY do i like this? what specifically abt it is appealing to me? why does it ring true, or why doesn’t it? notice motifs bc thats usually the easiest way to notice symbolism (for example theres a lot of mirrors and reflections in russian doll. what does that mean?) and think abt what they could represent in the story. track character development, make mental notes of a character’s motivations and ideals, and notice how the story affects them and ask if it makes sense. give urself room to dislike things (Just because legend of korra is the sequel to a show u really liked doesnt mean u have to like lok too!), but ask urself why u disliked them, and see if u can form a convincing argument abt it.

look at other people’s analysis of fiction! watch video essays and read other people’s analysis! u dont have to agree w them, but see what patterns they’ve picked out, and see if u can pick out patterns like it next time. it’s really just practice the more u read/watch critically, the more u get better at it!

for me fiction is the most fun and creative way to Apply critical thought because like. every piece has a Point to it. Nonfiction will just come out and tell u what their point is, but fiction requires u to figure out what theirs is, and bc of that there’s a lot of flexibility in how u read it. (hint: as long as the text doesnt actually disprove ur reading, that’s a valid Point! another hint: not all Valid points are Good) also, i dont wanna sound like an asshole here but theres no way to avoid it so here it is: a lot of people dont criticize/analyze fiction properly bc of their emotional attachment to it. they’ll project things onto characters that arent supported by the text, they’ll write “fix it” fanfiction that ignores or misunderstands the important themes of a story, they’ll excuse genuinely bad writing bc theyre attached to the characters (can anyone say 2020 supernatural renaissance?). its fine to be emotionally attached to a story (and if it’s a good story u WILL be emotionally attached to it) but when u write analysis of a story set ur affection for the characters aside for the moment cuz u will always end up with much fairer and more interesting analysis when u do.

also, find somebody to talk to abt fiction or make a blog abt it! its fun to talk about and u will find it easier to form arguments when ur actively talking abt it cuz honestly i only ever have a half formed thought when i write my long posts i just sit down and start typing and i organize my thoughts once theyre already down

so, idk. tldr: read more nonfiction, read less fanfiction, write more analysis. And pay attention in english class if ur in school

#maybe i just specifically like nonfiction a lot but its really helped me develop the lens that i use to read fiction #asks

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yggdrasil-mith0s · 4 years

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Another reason people probably didnt like Symphonia their first time but later loved it is because of the themes and undertones. Here is another essay that's going to be a very quick Symphonia walkthrough as a young child playing.

Here's a warning: I mention some stuff that happens in Symphonia. It will be mostly vague but there will be mention of death. There also might be some spoilers in here but nothing too serious, just some of the beginning story more than likely.

Let me begin by saying the box art looks pretty cool for the Gamecube but the front and back does look like a very, very young child's RPG. It seems like an RPG that was creates for super young children that havent hit there teens or are in the very first years of being a teen.

I'm about to give a quick walkthrough as if I am a very young kid playing Symphonia for the first time. This is to show why a lot of people had this as their first game in the series but didnt like it. Why a lot of people weren't the biggest fans until their second playthrough or when they gave it another chance and realized it is absolutely stunning. A top 10 game of all time across every platform created.

First off, there was a lot of adult themes and tones in Symphonia. Obviously, I dont mean nudity or sexually explicit material. I'm talking about the Desian Camps. The idea that millions of people are being captured, put to work, then put to death or letting them die. These type of adult themes.

The first time we played, we were young. We didnt get choked up or super sentimental about what was going on in video games. We didn't care so much about the parallels between real life and our video games. Usually, we just wanted something fun to play. I mentioned it earlier but the start of Symphonia looks super childish and like it's going to be a lighthearted adventure. You have a cast of kids (2 very young adults that added comedy and badassness). A majority of the beginning fights are snakes, birds, bunnies, and bears. The battle system is fun but also easy enough to get the hang of. You can honestly button mash with the occasional arte and not worry about combos . You didnt have to worry about combos at all, really, and just use artes when you wanted. Some of the artes were pretty cool looking and strong too which added more of a "wow, the combat system is cool. There's attacks and a bunch of power attacks you can use. You can also move around and dont have to wait like a turn base game." It's also possible to just button mash or use all your MP on Artes and really kick their ass.

Combining all of those elements together makes it seem more kid friendly than it really is. Playing through the start makes you feel like a 10 year old playing his first RPG with an age appropriate game since you control a bunch of kids. The fights are easy and usually bees or some weak animal. Nothing serious, really. The artes are cool and the more artes you learn, the cooler and more fun Lloyd gets. It's cool to play as Lloyd when you learn a new arte or two.

So far everything has been pretty lighthearted. This RPG is fun, the characters are pretty cool and can be funny. The dungeons aren't super confusing. It's just a fun game overall but nothing spectacular or crazy. Really the worst thing that has happened is "Desians bad. They destroy hometown over something stupid."

Marble's scene is the only real adult sad part in the game so far. They kill Marble in a way that you kind of don't get crushed by emotions. They let you down pretty easy and you get Marble's ring for Genis so now she is always with you. Her death isn't too bad because she was old and it was just one old woman in the game. It's sad but not devastating. Also the Ranch. They use them as slaves. But tbh it doesn't really hit you that they resemble real world stuff and you dont see the parallels like you should. You just kind of write it off as shitty and Desians are evil and the bad guys. Surely you save everyone from the ranches and that's the point of the game. Kill Desians and save everyone.

You get to the dessert oasis where Colette crashed through the wall. Cute and funny. Oh, Lloyd and Genis get captured by bad Desians but the wanted posters were bad so it made it funny. Eventually, You escaped the bad, bad Desians and are back with your friends, yay!!! You go to the fire shrine, finally see more menacing enemies but they still arent that bad, and start your first puzzle dungeon! It's short but a lot of fun with a boss fight. It was a little tough but fun!! You beat the shrine, yay!!!

The serious Angel (Remiel) comes down again and talks to Colette and the gang. He gives her wings! She is becoming an angel. At this point you are thinking, "How cool. Colette is becoming an angel!!! She has wings now and can probably fly wherever she wanted to go! This game is really fun. It's not bad at all. The weapons and equipment aren't difficult and it's fun buying or finding stuff better than what you have and equipping the new stuff. The skits can be funny too and I get to know the characters better with the skits. This game is really cool, actually." It's time to speed this post up, though. I'll be going faster and doing more short versions/storytelling.

We sail across seas and bow we are at Palmacosta!!! Here's where things get a little weird and stuff too. So Palmacosta is cool. We look through town, only to find imposters. That's right. These fools are pretending to be me and my gang. Im the one with a cool group and shit. People wanna be me so bad!!! Lol.

By the way. General Dorr is also the Mayor of Palmacosta.

Imposters are rude and we meet mayor who seems cool till he tells us he thought the imposters were us and gave them a book we need. So....little me is like

"YOU DID WHAT!?" .... so we leave. Lol

We go to mountain gate, cant pass yet, learn Palmacosta is under attack by ... you guessed it... Desians. ,

*little me has eyes stretch wide open* But I was just there!!!! Sucks, I know.

So we head back and make it to Palmacosta. Remember the girl we saved from extreme questioning and customers that were badgering the girl since she was the store clerk/owner. Of course not. I never mentioned it. I saved her back then at the start of Palmacosta. Naturally they chose Chocolate, in some weird, sick revenge way for me making them look weak when they verbally attacked her. So Chocolate is about to hang and be killed. Some stuff happens and Lloyd ends up using his sword to save Chocolate. Boom. He is a hero. He saved someone from hanging....

Wait.... hanging? In kids game? Damn that's a little intense for a kids game but I guess you do save her. Carry on.....

So let's speak to the Mayor. He was conveniently gone while that was happening but meh. Coincidence right? Yeah. Yeah.

Talking to the General/Mayor we decide to go rescue everyone who has been kidnapped from Palmacosta. By the way there's a ranch for most cities that Desian's manage. So there is a Palmacosta Ranch and a bunch of people from Palmacosta are now held prisoners in the Ranch. Boo! But I digress.

Off to Palmacosta ranch!!! We finally reach it and... oh look... General Dorr"s personal Aide/Assistant. What's this? He is a traitor!? You've got to be kidding me! I trusted that dude!!! Maybe that will teach little me to be careful about who I hang out with. A pretty good life lesson for little me and nothing too serious. I'll handle that later though, and rescue the prisoners in the Palmacosta Ranch.

We save Chocolate but she would almost rather die than be saved by you. So you save her but not without a fight and learning some shocking stuff that little me is like "WHAAAA!!!???!??? NO WAY NO WAY NO WAY!!!!!!!! she still lives cause of you and you fight the leader of the Ranch and win that battle!!!

So yay!!! You won the battle and beat Palmacosta Ranch! Good job little you! You did awesome!!! The game has been really great, with a pretty light tone for the most part. Everything is bright, the enemies arent that bad at all, nothing truly fucked up has ha---"we're going to blow up the Ranch with people still in it" -Raine.

That's right.... "YOU'RE GONNA WHAT!?!?"

So yeah, we blow up Palmacosta Ranch. Desians were probably still inside along with a janitor named Chet that everyone forgot about lol. So bye bye Ranch!!!

"That got dark really fast and Raine is pretty ruthless but most people escaped. I guess I can kind of forgive that. This game is definitely darker than I thought but it could be worse. Most people escaped anyways I am sure. So it's not that bad." -me.

Back to Palmacosta to confront the traitor General Dorr!! Here we are! General Dorr and his daughter are standing suspiciously in the basement of the government building in Palmacosta. I'm sure he knows that he has been found out. I know he tried to sabotage the Chosen's journey. He has no exc--- OH NO! They got his wife with the Demon Seed, too!! Now she is a monster! No wonder he is a traitor. He is trying to get a potion which is the cure to save his wife. I kind of get it but that's pretty messed up. He is basically being held hostage. This game just got a little darker.... but it could be worse, I suppo----WHAT!? HIS DAUGHTER IS A DEMON! DID SHE JUST SAY SHE KILLED HIS DAUGHTER A LONG TIM AGO AND HE WAS TOO STUPID TO NOTICE!?"

She really just called him stupid and is acting like he is the biggest idiot for not knowing she killed his daughter!!! This whole time she has pretended to be his daughter. That means she probably went to her school, played with her friends, talked to her dad and played with him. She probably told him she loved him which is so messed up. She also knew there was no potion but continued to watch him and be ready to kill him if he tried to snitch about his wife. This got dark really fucking fast wtf!!! She is a complete demon stranger in a girls body pretending she loves her daddy, plays with friends, and does child things but is a demon the whole time. "I love you daddy says the demon pretending to be your daughter. That's really sick and twisted. Sad thing is little me is like "well that's weird. How did no one notice at all she was acting odd?

Maybe she didn't have any friends and her dad is to distracted about the medicine for his wife, he doesn't notice.

That's absolutely crazy and completely dark. Woah. This game is way way darker than it lead me to believe when I was young. That was pretty much my first reaction/playthrough when I was little. Symphonia is dark as fuck.

I played a little bit further to the next ranch my first playthrough but quit when I found out they were killing people like it was nothing. I was really little then, too, btw. I quit because it got really dark and kind of weird and complicated to fully grasp everything going on and the parallels to the real world. I always played RPGs relating it to real life and such. I have done that since my first RPG so with Symphonia I had to quit. It was too dark and weird when I first played it.

Once I came back and beat Symphonia I thought it was Brilliant. It was absolutely amazing and worth so much more praise. I loved it and still do. Even the dark side of things.

Turns out I am not the only one who did this. Play through, reach a dark part or part where you realize how dark it is, and then quit. I'm glad I picked it back up, though. It's almost a perfect game!!!

So yeah... here's a playthrough of little me and Symphonia. I was too little to be playing games with dark themes even if they were short or small. I say this because I was stupid small and really let my imagination run wild when I played games and read. I often make things 20 times worse so I really shouldn't have played Symphonia till later.

Anyways it's amazing. Nearly perfect.

Enjoy your games, everyone. If you arent currently doing so, find a Tales game to pick up and start playing!!! Tales of Arise or some other Tales game will be here before you know it so practice up!!! Play a Tales game!!!

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crowsent · 3 years

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so i started watching kings avatar

this is a no-spoiler reaction mini-essay of the kings avatar anime; an action-adventure anime focused on high-paced fight scenes and an insane amount of dramatic one-liners but has like. a surprising amount of character focus and compelling narratives. the anime released a few years ago, around 2017, and i know its technically a “web series” and not an anime but consider this: anime is easier to type. so anyway, this anime is essentially an e-sports centred around a fictional mmorpg which is. not a genre i like. but for reasons i refuse to admit on this blog, i started watching this anime and im glad i did. because its good.

surprisingly good.

the animation, the music, the characters, the sound design, the environment, setting, killer one-liners, plot, character dynamics, emotional scenes...

its fucking good.

i expected something mediocre at best bc e-sports anime arent generally known for any profound themes and usually just funnel all their budget into fight scenes which certainly have a place in the anime community but its not my cup of tea but kings avatar just. decimated that idea.

8 minutes in and i already got a compelling amount of characterisation for the main character, the setting, and oddly enough, a discussion about the chinese gaming culture and how corporate commercialises the industry and leaves their talent (the gamers) ill-prepared for when they get their contracts released and/or terminated which is. not what id expect

obviously, the fictional depiction of the chinese gaming industry in an anime should not be taken to represent the chinese gaming industry in real life but like. 8 minutes in. i got THIS MUCH from kings avatar 8 MINUTES IN.

there is so much about this anime that i didnt expect and i was pleasantly surprised. for starters:

the music. the music of this anime is stellar. that ost during the first fight we see in the very beginning is just adrenaline-pumping. thats the kind of music youd expect to find from a AAA movie. the kind of music youd expect from a fucking video game boss battle. and its soooooooo fitting for the anime which is essentially about video games and battles. amazing score. 10/10

the animation. there is 3d animation mixed in w the 2d BUT its blended pretty seamlessly that it isnt super obvious. obviously the big boss we see in the beginning is 3d bc its cheaper/easier to animate, but there are some background characters and props that are animated with 3d as well. the animation is smooth enough and the amount of detail is made just so to ensure that the focus still remains on the 2d animation. not revolutionary by any means, but the inclusion of 3d anime allows for something that i found really appealing,

the camerawork. dont know if i talked about this before on this blog, but i am a fucking sucker for good camerawork in animated movies. which is why i ADORED kimetsu no yaiba which has PHENOMENAL camerawork that took all my uwus. kings avatar has the same phenomenal camerawork. huge panning shots of a beautifully rendered environment, action scenes with quick cuts and deliberate rolling focus, numerous perspective shots from different angles to achieve suspense, unease, drama, fucking ALL OF IT

the thing that i loved most of course, are the dramatic moments and one-liners bc im a dramatic motherfucker and i eat that shit up. the most unnecessarily extra tossing of a contract across a table, “rest for a year then come back” announcement, “50/50? id rather take 100″ and so on and so on. this anime is so fuckin EXTRA and i fucking love it

please do keep in mind that i uh,,,, may be a little biased for this anime. ive already mentioned that i usually dislike the genre but i watched kings avatar for a reason and for that reason, i may react to the anime a little more favourably than i would otherwise

but also keep in mind that while i normally post screenshots along with my reactions, i wasnt able to grab screenshots this time around bc i uhhhhhh did not pause the episode to grab the screenshots bc this stupid fucking thing got me waiting with bated breath so take what you will from this ig

dunno if ill do an episode-by-episode reaction or do one huge reaction at the very end with my formal review/opinion of the show as a whole. well see

#kings avatar #crowsas reactions

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peachymilkshakes · 4 years

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Thoughts on Project Diva Mega39s

I thought i’d write a little blog post about this, since i’ve had this game for a few days now. There are a few things i’m happy with, and a few things that i’m dissapointed with. So i’d like to talk about that. Keep in mind that I am a NintendHOE. I do not own much Playstation stuff besides my Vita and my brother’s PS2. So this is coming from the perspective of someone who has only played PDf, PDf2ND, X and Project MiraiDX.

Since i’ve learned to end with the compliments while giving a critique, i’ll start with the things that i wished were different.

1. The setlist I’m missing SO many songs from older games! Since this game is calling itself MEGAmix, i would’ve expected way more. I’m missing songs like Nyanyanyanya!, Love is war or Glasses. (seriously, how else am i gonna look at Racing Swimsuit Luka in awe if it isn’t for that slowmo bit at the beginning of Glasses?) If i had to list every single song that i’m missing i could have written a book instead. So i’m not going to do that (yet!) The video that i’ve linked in paragraph 3 under this lists a few more that i think deserve a spot. 2. The PVs Then there are songs like Dreaming ChuChu, or Suna no wakusei, who, don’t have a 3DPV at all, but rather their original PVs the way they were uploaded to Youtube/NicoNico. Excuse me? SEGA, if you’re going to charge me 60 euros for the full game (current DLC included) I’m expecting nicely animated story PVs. I haven’t even talked about the Roki PV or all those PVs that just has the vocaloid dancing on a stage and that’s it. Sure, for some PVs it works. Like for Clover Club. But other than that it’s just utterly boring man.. Where has the time gone where we got fully animated story PVs? Like i dunno.. the VOiCE PV? Who remembers that? I miss that!

Roki’s PV was made by slapping the dance motion they made for the concerts onto the models and bam there ya go. Originality has been found nowhere. I mean sure, they’re allowed to do that. But at least tweak it a little. This is just boring and unoriginal. But hey at least Roki has a 3DPV unlike other songs i would’ve loved to see have one. Exhibit A Exhibit B (Timestamp 2:15 but watch the whole video)

3. Something else Going from the PDf and PDf2nd on my Vita, to this, has been a rough transition. I’m dearly missing the hold notes. Sure, we have a different type now, but it’s not the same. Although I’m sure it’s just an issue of getting used to, I will most likely just go back to my vita to play certain songs the way i like to play them instead. It’s not a big deal, just a thing that i’m personally missing.

Then I heard that SEGA Japan overcharged their people for the game as well. The English translated game was significantly cheaper than the Japanese game, which is interesting since Japan is Miku’s origin country. This is just something i’ve learned from a video on youtube, and i think you should just watch it yourself rather than take my word for it. You can find it right here.

Another little gripe i have is that when you finish a song it’ll have replay preselected and i end up accidentally pressing that instead of back. But that’s just a tiny little nitpick.

I miss the diva room so much!! Why don’t we have any diva rooms anymore? I wanna pet Teto and feed her dangos :(

Oh and, the module selection screen couldve been more nicely ordered. I have to go through like 20 other modules to get to the one i want. It’s really messy looking and i get really overwhelmed by it.

Honestly my biggest issue has to be the setlist, the unanimated and dance/stage PVs, and the oddly looking graphics of the game. (Toon shader on the models but no toonshader on the stages. It looks off. I just don’t like it.) At least the models aren’t looking like the Dreamy Theater models. Good grief was that an eyesore. But i don’t like the toonshader either. I guess it’s more of a taste thing, but i’m not into it.

4. So, which game is the worst. X or Mega39s? Honestly, in my opinion it has to be X. I’m sorry, but despite it having my favourite setlest out of every Project Diva game, I just really dislike the premise of the whole thing. At least the Arcade type Project Diva games lets you play every song freely without any burdening annoying objective like filling up a crystal and having to clear live shows and medly songs in order to advance. And besides that, the Arcade games have way more songs added by all the loids that arent called Hatsune Miku. I’m more of a Rin and Luka stan, so i’d prefer more songs by them, or even Meiko.

And yeah, we could criticise the other games for this as well, but i suppose it’ll always be like this since Miku is Crypton’s flagship product much like what Mario is for Nintendo. She just sells well, so we get more songs involving her, and i get that.

5. What do I like about Mega39s? The sliders have been a lot of fun. Although i miss the star icons from PDf, it’s a great way to keep the gameplay feel fresh. And I feel like especially in songs like Unhappy Refrain they fit in great and add to the feel of the song. I also like the clean menus and the music that plays during them.

Overall the setlist isn’t bad. I love the songs we have. I’ve been dying to play Tricolore Airline outside of Project MiraiDX. (Which by the way, Rin’s version is the most superior one of all of them)

I’m glad that they’ve included the fact that you can change the icons into the old Playstation ones. I’ve changed them into that and have gotten better scores because i’m just more used to that. Although i still have to stop pressing B when i should be pressing A to select something since we’re playing on Nintendo after all.. Yeah, i have trouble SWITCHing if you get me.. haha..

I’m curious of what’s to come for the franchise’s future. I hope they’ve learned from the debacle of PDX.. but who knows really.

The game is fine. You could argue they should’ve just marketed it as Future Tone but on switch, since it is essentially that. But for people like me, who do not own a Playstation, that is not much of a problem. You could always just not get MegaMix if you already own Future Tone. (Honestly, if you own a playstation, please just buy future tone)

But that’s all i have to say on the matter. I also have been thinking of writing a post like this for ACNH since i’m sort of a “veteran” but we’ll see wether i’ll feel like writing another essay by then. If you made it this far, thank you for reading <3

#project diva #hatsune miku #Sega #nintendo #rythm game #vocaloid

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