Somebody wanna tell me real quick what the fuck Nina's doing working for Kazuya???
You wanna tell me Nina is so beyond personal bias and feelings and that she has become so cold that she will accept jobs from literally anyone? Even if it is the person who had her captures, forced her into cryosleep and indirectly caused her pregnancy and amnesia (I think the super soldier program that resulted in the birth of Steve was initiated after Heihachi took over but Nina was put into cryosleep under Kazuya's orders)?
That makes absolutely no sense both in regards to who she is as a person and her character development. Yes she is ruthless and cold but, so far, her goals mostly aligned with the "good" side of things.
In Tekken 1, she was hired to kill Heihachi, who was an asshole. In Tekken 2 she was hired to kill Kazuya, who is an even bigger asshole. In Tekken 6 she worked for Jin, who seemed like the ultimate asshole but in the end we learned that he had concocted the most fucked up way ever to save humanity from the devil and its influence on individuals like him who possessed the devil Jin. Furthermore, she was shown to back out of assignments if they crossed too far into the morally wrong side. In Tekken 4 she hesitated to kill Steve and ultimately refused to do so after learning that she was, in fact, his mother. She says she felt nothing in 5 but the matter of fact is that she ultimately did not kill him. She reiterates this sentiment in Tekken 7, that although he is biologically her son she feels no connection to him whatsoever, but I feel like this was mostly her playing it cool to prevent Steve from getting too attached to her, a literal assassin. That last one is my own assumption so disregard it if you will but my point still remains; she was tasked to kill her own son but didn't.
During Tekken 6 and 7 we see a clear bond between Nina and Jin. Not necessarily a romantic one (although I shipped them as a teenager, but realistically none of them would allow themselves to fall for anyone, for various reasons) but you could tell they were close. Jin trusted Nina enough to actually reveal his plan to her as it was Nina who revealed Jin's ultimate goal to Lars and the players. She was the de facto leader of the Mishima Zaibatsu and actively searched for Jin. You mean to tell me that all of that was "just business" and that she would just as easily switch sides just for a paycheck?
I pray Namco has an ulterior motive written for her that they will reveal once the game launches, in a similar fashion to how Jin was seemingly portrayed as "just another Mishima" as soon as he wielded the Zaibatsu's power in his hands but ultimately redeemed / will redeem himself, otherwise this is a disservice to Nina, her fans and comically bad writing; the assassin who double crosses everyone, works for everyone, is loyal to none and feels nothing, ever? Fuck that. We know that's the facade she's trying to sell to everyone to look as professional and capable as possible but she has shown her true emotions time and time again.
Furthermore, her, essentially, taking Anna's job (and look, with the bob cut and dress) diminishes the latter's chances of making an appearance even further... She kinda took Bruce's job too lol
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It's been announced that Elon is reflecting on making X membership exclusive, ie where you pay to have an X membership.
With the upcoming death of X, I find myself having meta thoughts about my fandoms, the art community, and where they intersect; and, how much those things radically-and-completely changed after the death of Tumblr -- and still haven't recovered.
(this does relate to Cross!Sans' recent win I prommy just give me a minute)
...
To start off with an example:
Some folks still remember the mass death of Tumblr.
It's hard to describe it to people who didn't see it.
There were actual casualties. Y'all remember that, too? The deaths?
Most of them were because for many people, their ~5-10 years of portfolio disappeared overnight with no recovery. Even for folks who had backups, the little things that mattered most, like reblog-chains, had been compromised. I remember reading a vent post that stuck w/ me of a college applicant sobbing because their blog was going to be their portfolio to apply, and the needed morning, it was gone. They lived through an abusive home and lost their out. They stopped posting after that.
There are keystone works that now only exist in our minds.
Cornerstones of both fandom and people's real lives were erased by a mega corp afraid of organic Human sensuality, the artist's familiar muse. A kiss, a shirtless photo, a man lounging in the sun, didn't matter. Gone with no explanatory messages. Everything was very unstable about the rules for a disturbingly long time with ghost-edits to the sitewide rules, and vague lettering. If you posted a single dangly bit, you're out. If you posted male or female nypples at any point, you're out. The rules now aren't the rules that were for a little while, long enough to carve up careers and sink fandoms.
As a case study:
Try to understand that if you're a new arrival into an old fandom from the Before Times, like say Undertale,
... you arrived into a fandom carved into quarters.
Everything we cared about and definitive blogs & art pieces vanished. I was temporarily surprised that Cross!Sans won the AU contest instead of the longtime fandom favorites like G!Sans.
For years, he was our fandom mascot.
I had a harrowing realization and began doomscrolling to confirm that nobody can find 👌the showstopping sensuality 👌😩 of G!Sans. It's gone.
G-o-n-e gone, can't find it anywhere, like that mfker into his smoke.
Our fandom values and cultural pillars that we built ourselves were deleted off-site by some Suits.
Everything the young people inherited was bleached-out and fucking sanitized by a corporation. We had no choice but to tolerate that, even as self aware as we were about it.
...this cultural-drift was not because of natural evolution, but because we weren't sterile enough to "make the cut;" and now, it's definitive with a clear before/after gap.
...
I'm of the opinion that the online art community has never really recovered from these repeat events.
It's never been the same:
I see a lot less WIPs unless it's teasing a piece.
I see less reckless abbandon in artwork. There's less scribbles.
There's less breath on the canvas.
People tightened their shit up into hyper polished presentation-pieces.
There's less shitposting in general. People used to post doodles and silly faces and polished pieces were in between.
I think this new media relationship comes from a place of collective hurt. I think many of us realized all society gives a fuck about is money money money money for something that for many of us is a necessary biproduct of being alive. The people who couldn't handle that never came back. They Told Us So when they left, and coincidentally, never came back -- or came back different.
❕ (brief cw cp)
As necessary aside, I'm not lumping in the CP -- it's that every platform has CP, and addressing CP head-on on a platform like Tumblr also meant having regulations that corporate with legal, consensual sensuality, and that's not feasible without endorsing that exists... AND, is deeply influential to many artists. Tumblr wasn't willing to do that.
Tumblr wasn't willing to accept ads from orgs that are okay with that, either.
❕ (cw over)
I feel like this keeps happening... Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter/X... because it comes from a cultural climate of fear towards the veritable Human qualities, some raw, beastial, or even vestigial, of which is the Creative's foundational wellspring. What inspires is often transgressive, and there's no room for such things on a corporate level due to the sterile inhumanity of present day economics. If it's not palettable enough that it can be sold to stockholders with polished floors and dry-cleaned suits, we're a weed between the concrete.
Get too tall and we're seen as a disordered presentation of society instead of just... just, Human. Raw, beastial, vestigially Human.
...
At the end of the day,
our inherently-self-expressive Human potential keeps getting butchered alive by fear of sex & sensuality and love, and the bitter taste of culturally dominant hatespeech; to really spit on the situation, the biggest driver behind both of those is economic. There's a desire knit into the social fabric to squeeeeeeze every fkn penny possible out of an inherently involuntary part of the Creative's experience.
For many, creating freely is a necessary part of a Creative's self-regulation, regardless of whether it's just a hobby or a career path. Creatives create things. We have to or we wilt. It is counter-intuitive to the nature of Wall Street, as it stands, and so it will never favor us -- let alone begin to understand that, without overhaul.
For me, painting is like breathing, I have to do it or I become ill.
...
...It's like... they bottled our air.
Dammed our wellsprings and sell our own work back to us in plastic jugs. Elusive, ominous "they," vague because it's a lottery for whoever plays "them" next; executioner with hanging-rope in hand to strange the creative experience.
There's nothing sacred left when it's all about making money.
...so, where's next?
(: Might as well grit our teeth about it and stay organized. Mastodon, I think? Dreamwidth also? Misskey? Where have you heard? Where do I go, now?
I miss the reblog-artfights and having Tumblr friends before it was deleted by a suit, and I don't want to lose that.
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