#but I’ve seen it come up a few times in online discussions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lil-shiro · 5 months

Text

Lance Stroll Driving Style/Preference Analysis

I’ve seen a lot of videos and posts online about different driver’s driving styles, so I wanted to do a bit of in depth analysis for Lance since

I haven’t really seen a lot about his and

I think his is very interesting and differs from a large portion of rest of the grid

Disclaimer: I’m no expert or professional at this :)) It’s very much out of personal interest and looking at his growth as a driver. Be aware that styles can change depending on the car, and I could even argue that there are no true “styles”, which is why I like using the word “preferences” as well.

Introduction

Some things that I’ve seen being discussed when it comes to driver’s preferences include:

Early vs. late breaking into turns

Agressive vs. smooth steering

Preference of Understeer vs. oversteer

Just to name a few but it all plays a part in how fast you exit a corner, tire degradation, and possibility of getting overtaken.

Lance’s “Style”

On the grid, there are a lot of drivers who vary in their approach to how they take corners, such as Checo who always anticipates the best line to take, or Fernando who drives aggressively and uses a braking area to go into a corner without losing speed exiting it.

Lance differs because he’s always been a true reactive driver, meaning he relies more on instinctive feel. You can see it on his onboards, how he’s constantly adjusting the wheel and makes very erratic inputs while driving.

This is in contrast to other drivers who we see handle the steering wheel in a smoother way that doesn’t make it look like they’re wrestling with their car. In his first year of F1 especially, he was significantly overdriving the car.

He uses very deep braking and carries a lot of speed into the corner because of this. From the outside, it seems like he only plans up to the middle of the corner and somehow fights his way from there to the straight, but his reaction time is amazing, therefore he doesn’t completely lose the car. You can see how his approach is unorthodox.

Quali

If you’ve been following Lance for a bit, you probably know that quali has never been his strong suit, he’s definitely more of a Sunday driver. And this correlates directly to his style.

No two laps from him are exactly the same, and since it’s not very smooth, his one-lap pace suffers.

“Rainmaster”

Lance’s driving is far from ideal for a dry quali, but this is why he reacts very well to unforeseen events and changing conditions. On a wet track, drivers have to constantly correct themselves, but he’s already doing that normally.

After his pole position in the wet, he said, “In these conditions you can’t think about everything. You just have to focus on the next corner”. This just highlights how he literally takes it one corner at a time, acting on instinct, as opposed to forecasting what he’s gonna do in the next corner. Ironically, people have said that this instinctive driving reminds them of Gilles Villeneuve.

Adding on, his frantic steering style is really good for heating up cold tires in the wet.

Growth

I would say that over the years, he’s definitely learned how to tone down the way he handles the car. For example, his tire management used to be very bad as his steering would just overwork them.

But even just looking at recent races such as Brazil and Las Vegas, he manages to go on long stints, even exceeding the predicted tire life which would be impossible if he still drove as aggressively as before. His reaction time has only gotten better as well, often gaining places at the start.

However, if you look at his onboards, you can still tell his driving apart from anyone else’s, and I don’t think his way of driving will ever change.

He has such a natural talent for feel and being able to quickly react in the most extreme conditions, but that has forced him to work on other aspects of racing such as tire management and one-lap race pace.

One reason why it might have taken him longer to develop his racing may be his jump from F3 straight to F1. Lower series cars have less grip overall, which suits his style, as opposed to F1 cars that have good grip. So you can probably see why he struggled in the beginning.

Conclusion

As you can see, his driving is quite different, and it shows through his strengths and weaknesses. Reactive driving was more the norm back F1 from the 70’s to early 2000’s, but went away as cars became smoother. I actually think he’d be really good at rally driving…

But I dunno I guess this makes me like him even more because of all the work he’s had to put in to make his unconventional driving work in modern F1.

Extra Onboard from 2017 His Suzuka start in the wet Onboard from LVGP

#lord help me i can't believe i just wrote this #feel free to add your discussions or talk to me about it!#lancey is such a rough gem to me #lance stroll #f1 analysis #f1 meta

206 notes · View notes

carnivore-voyeur · 19 days

Text

CW - Unmasked Ghoul Discussion Re: Use of Fandom Names vs. Nicknames & Maintaining Respect for Privacy

I’ve seen an uptick in people using the name “Sodo” in fanworks that are clearly based on the fictional Ghost / Ghouls universe. This is just a polite reminder that “Sodo” is Per Eriksson’s personal nickname that has nothing to do with Ghost. If we want to respect boundaries, it’s best to refer to the ghoul he plays with another name.

I know part of the problem is a result of Dewdrop and Sodo being conflated in fandom to the point that on AO3, content involving the fictional ghoul he plays has been labeled as Dewdrop | Sodo. That doesn’t mean that fans should use Sodo as a stand-in for Dewdrop, the fictional ghoul you are creating fanworks about.

I may use the term “Sodo Ghoul” in the tags whenever I’m referring to Per Eriksson performing as a Ghoul, but the fictional persona that was created by fans for the “character” he is playing on stage is “Dewdrop.” Of course, you can call that “character” something else if you like, but again… “Sodo” is not a fictional person. Sodo is Per Eriksson. Per Eriksson plays lead guitar for Ghost.

If you hear Papa Emeritus IV calling out “Sodo” on stage, it’s because he can technically call him that without revealing his identity as it’s a nickname. It’s not because “Sodo” is the name of the ghoul. I’m clearing this up, too, because there are people who comment on Ghost content with the belief that Sodo was a fan given name that they adopted for the Ghoul and/or they don’t know what Sodo means.

e.g.

As you can see by the dates, the misinformation regarding his nickname persists to this day.

There was a rumor started by fans that was never validated that Per Eriksson read a fanfic about his Ghoul persona and expressed that he hated the nickname “Dewdrop.” This is utter nonsense. First of all, please keep fanworks in fandom spaces. Don’t share them with the band. Second, Per Eriksson doesn’t spend much time on the internet let alone fandom spaces. So, that’s just bull.

If you don’t want to call the fan-named ghoul, Dewdrop. You can pick another name. It’s all fictional. There are no rules. Rules and boundaries come in when we’re dealing with real people. Per Eriksson has on more than one occasion talked about how uncomfortable he is with people finding out private information about him.

Here’s an excerpt of an interview you can find here discussing his feelings on privacy for context:

This was from 2012, so you can imagine how he feels about it now. You can probably understand why he doesn’t post often or only puts his content up for a limited amount of time. You can probably understand why he snapped at fans digging into his personal life a few years back, deleting everything he ever posted online. We’re not entitled to know everything about him.

Using his personal nickname for fictional content is blurring the lines between the fictional and Per Eriksson’s personal life. There are aspects of the “character” he plays on stage that can be inspired by him, but there are other things about him that are very personal or they’re unique to him. Maybe he cares. Maybe he doesn’t. I can’t speak for him, but I do think it’s important to draw a line.

I’m not trying to lecture or shame anyone specifically. I just want to remind everyone that Dewdrop is fictional, but Sodo is not. Dewdrop may be portrayed by Per Eriksson, but Sodo is Per Eriksson. Using his personal nickname for fanworks would be just the same as calling Swiss Ghoul, Jutty, which is Justin Taylor’s personal nickname. If that’s obviously crossing a line to you, then it shouldn’t be any different when it comes to using Sodo and Dewdrop interchangeably in fanworks.

#the band ghost #dewdrop ghoul #sodo ghoul #per eriksson #per sodo eriksson #unmasked ghouls #unmasked ghoul #text post

122 notes · View notes

stemmmm · 2 months

Text

Stem's Thoughts on Harvest Moon 64

(that other title's too long so i'm cutting it down now)

Harvest Moon 64 opens on a scene of your character walking around the street, speaking to everyone in the village who’s come to the event. You quickly piece together that this event in question is actually your grandfather’s funeral, the same grandfather who’s farm you’re about to take over. This little scene beautifully sets up both the tone of the game, and immediately shows the player that this iteration is far more focused on the story and characters. HM64 tells a story about the lives of many people in a small, dying town. It is a story about life, and it is a story about death.

A short disclaimer before we dig in: I played this game before the idea to write these essays cropped up, and have not replayed it since then, so this will be mostly vibes. I will try to do my research to make sure I’m not straight up lying though. (Also all of the images in this one are from google because I don't have a means of getting images from my N64 other than photographing the tv screen and I'm not doing that.)

What’s new!

HM64, also called Harvest Moon 2 by HMGB2 and nothing else I’ve ever seen, is the direct sequel to HM SNES. It’s not a sequel in the usual way sequels are, where you’re continuing where you left off with the same character, but in that every main character is the descendant of their equivalent in the previous game. It’s not important to the story, in fact if you don’t already know this, you probably wouldn’t notice anything past some similarities. I played this game before I tried out SNES and it still took me a minute, plus having it directly pointed out to me to get it. Maybe I’m oblivious, who knows.

Gameplay-wise, this iteration is home of a few series firsts: For one, your house can be upgraded to have a kitchen! You can't cook though, only collect recipes. You can also get a greenhouse where you can grow crops year-round. Sheep are introduced as barn animals that produce wool. You receive a fishing rod you can use whenever you want, but as far as I understand, the timing is nigh impossible unless you’re playing on a CRT (I am not, and never managed to catch a single fish). There’s a mine you can access in winter for something to do while you can’t grow crops (there are fall crops, but not winter) where you can find about two key items and garbage otherwise. Tool upgrades are no longer done by magic, but by leveling them up through use! Which I think is very neat and feels very natural, like you’ve just become more proficient with them as a farmer through practice. Characters can now come to visit you on the farm at random times, for either special story events or just to say hi! Your farmer can get sick from working too hard in bad weather, just like your animals, and there’s now medicine for that, just like your animals. And there’s inventory menus that I'll discuss at better length later.

What’s the same is… Most things in a basic sense. You’re on a farm with a dog, planting crops, raising livestock. You can make friends with folks in town by talking to them and giving them gifts. The livestock mechanics, as far as I could see and as far as I’ve been able to understand from online forums, are exactly the same as they were in SNES, the exception being there’s no wild beasts that can kill your animals but they’ll still get sick if they aren’t fenced overnight– and they’re not going to eat any grass unless they’re out overnight anyways.

As for your farm, you’re set up with the usual: a small house, a barn, coop, and fodder silo, a wood bin to store debris cleared off your farm, and a big messy field that you have to clean up before you can properly use it. It starts with three new additions though; a doghouse, a bowl that you can feed your dog with by putting edible items in there, and a mailbox that you’ll occasionally receive letters and notices in! They’re small additions, but very, very charming. The one thing that’s been removed is the toolshed, now replaced by a tiny toolbox by your house.

The world outside your farm is like an enhanced version of the SNES map. Imagine the town and forest now have one or two extra sections tacked onto them, one in the town for some extra housing, and a couple in the forest to let you explore the mountain more and get you deeper into the woods. The mountain still has a cave in it (this time with Harvest Sprites, who have been removed from your farm) and a summit you can climb to for certain events, but it has been upgraded with little wild animals that wander around and can be picked up and shown to people for a few friendship points, if they like the animal. (This applies to your dog too, there’s a well known exploit to max out Karen’s friendship in one day by repeatedly showing it to her in the bar where time is stopped.) The crossroads zone is also expanded by having three new areas you can travel to– the ranch that you buy animals at, a vineyard that’s more of a story-area, and a beach that mostly comes into play for a couple of summer festivals!

On the visual side, this game is the series’ first venture into the new frontier of 3d graphics… kind of. The artstyle is made of isometric 3D models that are rendered into flat sprites and then projected onto the TV as if that’s not what’s happening. The game even lets you turn your farm around in 3D to face different directions, but it’s locked to only let you play in specific angles. Changing the direction made me forget where everything was and get lost on my own tiny farm, so I never touched that mechanic.

Due to the dramatic artstyle shift– not only being in 3D but also presented at a 45 degree angle, the game becomes a fair bit harder to play than either of its 2D predecessors. The controls are just a little clunky, and the bizarre shape of the N64 controller really doesn’t help. This makes the tedium of farming a little irritating to do, since it requires pretty precise inputs done over and over for every extra thing you’re trying to grow. Fortunately, you're not on the hook to ship everything before 5PM comes around like in SNES, so you get to move a little bit slower. The fickle farming experience also gets a little help from the new inventory menu that can be accessed anywhere and any time. It has multiple inventory slots for both tools and items, each type having a dedicated section so there’s no need to prioritize carrying tools versus turnips. Unfortunately, this actually ends up being a little more cumbersome than useful, as the menu takes a little longer than is comfortable to open and is pretty clunky to use. I mostly avoided it unless I was bringing gifts to people. But the addition of an inventory opens up the opportunity for something else which defines this entire game...

Key items– a set of unique, unsellable items –are most frequently found in random, secret places around the farm and town, and they give you a reason to scour every inch of the place. They can also be given to you by NPCs when you gain relationships with them, which is convenient because their entire purpose is to help you get even better relationships with each of them, and maybe even unlock little stories with characters. For example, there’s a music box you can dig up in your field that can be given to any of the girls for a decently sized relationship bump. There’s also an old weathervane in the shape of a chicken that you can find in the little mine. If you give it to Rick, he’ll tell you that it was a precious thing that belonged to his grandmother as a cute scene to deepen the town’s lore and connect it to the first game. Key items quickly become the most important and sought after things in the game because they act as a vessel to deliver that which the game is all about: stories.

Lots of people in a little town

The narrative premise is exceedingly simple: you need to fix up your grandfather’s ruined farm and make a new life for yourself in this town within a certain amount of time, just like its predecessors. Except, this game is a lot bigger than either of them, and it didn’t fill all the extra space with new things to grow on your farm. In my entry on the SNES game, I mentioned that the introspective style of writing turned the repetitive farming gameplay into something more like meditation on things going on in the town. This game takes that idea and runs with it! The town in this game may only be slightly bigger than it was before, but it has a lot more people in it, and every single one of them has a lot more to say, more to do, more festivals to go to, and more story events to take part in. There's even a new photo album that fills in with images for reaching special events or succeeding at certain festivals! Your given goal may be to successfully revitalize your farm, but that rapidly stops being the reason why you want to play. Farming is only a means to further the narrative of the town.

Story events are no longer a reward for reaching the highest heart level with a girl, but instead something that happens naturally in the world as you make better friends with people, or if you just happen to be in the right place at the right time. The world doesn’t only consist of you living it and things happening to you. Instead, you end up being a fly on the wall to other people’s conversations and life events, and you get to see how those events change the people around you. People will begin to say different things, go different places, live different lives without your input at all– often much better lives, as everyone in the town is pretty deeply troubled, whether they seem like it or not.

There’s an added depth, too. While the characters in this series have always been defined by their conflicts (in the first game, every big cutscene with each girl was exclusively about their major life conflicts), this game takes it further in multiple ways. Characters have conflicts with their families: you as the player have a conflict with your parents who can take you home if you fail to farm well, Lillia and Basil have conflict over their marriage and the fact that Basil leaves for half the year, and Karen’s family situation is…. A lot. Then, there are characters at conflict with things much more nebulous, like the Mayor who tells you that the town is going to die out but he can’t find any way to save it, or like the young boy Kent who wants to be a farmer just like you, but through a series of events is forced to learn that life isn’t so simple, people can’t just do whatever they would like, and it takes very hard work to get to do the things you dream of. And then there are conflicts that aren’t even necessarily conflicts unless they run into your long-term plans.

Instead of only having a bunch of girls in town who exist only as your prospective marriage candidates, there are also five boys in the town who will marry those girls instead of you, if given the chance. Like in SNES, there are 5 levels of hearts that the girls can have for you. Unlike SNES, each one of these hearts has a corresponding event you can have with the girl where there’s a chance of her liking you more afterwards, if you say the right things. In addition to that though, there are just as many events coming from the other side of the story, rival events that trigger if you happen to be good friends with the boys.

My favorite story by far is that of Harris the mailman who falls in love with the librarian, Maria, from just seeing her handwriting on the outside of all the letters that she would write. I frequently saw him in the bar at the end of the day and he would tell me the woes of his love, saying that he just needed to work up the courage to finally speak to her. Then one day, I happened to be outside of the library when he and Maria met face to face and she handed over a letter addressed to him. No longer did he sit in the bar forlorn every night, instead all he would do was excitedly tell me about Maria, and then when I visited the library, Maria would tell me about Harris!

While I’m on the subject of these characters, I think it’s worth going in a little more depth on who these people are past the grandchildren of the characters from the last game. See, you may be familiar with names like Karen and Kai and Gray, etc., etc. from a little recently remade game called Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, which is a modern version of Friends of Mineral Town on the GameBoy Advance, which is a port of Back to Nature on the PlayStation. These are not those characters. At all. While the basic elements of these characters are intact– Popuri is cute and childish, Ann is a workaholic, Maria is shy and a little oblivious –nothing else is the same. They all work different jobs and marry different people than they are paired with in later entries, and in my humble opinion, it all works WAY better in this game, probably because of the fact that these characters were designed for this specific context!

As an example, Popuri’s exasperated mother, Lillia, runs the flower shop and Popuri was named by her father, Basil, who loves plants. She’s childish and sweet and loves flowers, but can also be a complete brat. She eventually marries Gray, Ann’s brother, who lives on the ranch run by his father, Doug, who struggles to understand his children. Gray is an angry young man who seems to have a particular dislike for you, but you don’t learn why until you discover he was a promising young jockey until he got a bad injury and had to give up the sport.

Am I gushing a bit and letting the game design part fall to the wayside? Sure probably, but I can only gush because the game does a brilliant job of making a cast of characters who, while simple on their own, have interconnected lives that come together to give every one of them so much more depth than they would have otherwise. It all builds a narrative, and while narrative design is definitely something different than game design on its own, this game is far more about the narrative so it’s impossible to not focus on.

The problems

The trouble with these events is that I nearly missed the chance to see that letter be exchanged. You have some control over the progression of the events, because you have to be decent friends with the boys in order for them to trigger at all, but unlike the girls who have a handy visual signal of how much they like you, the boys have no such thing, so you can’t really know if a new event is ready to fire off. There’s no way of knowing where or when they’ll happen either unless you look it up, and even then you have to get lucky because sometimes they just don’t trigger when you want them to. I had a lovely moment in my game where I managed to accidentally catch a cold from working too hard in the snow and lost a day to being bedridden, followed by the New Years celebration which takes a day away from you, then followed by Kai and Karen’s wedding– something that I had missed multiple events for and therefore had no idea was coming, which also took a day from me. After that three day chain of no work, I think I was extremely lucky my animals didn’t get sick and die.

This chain of events led directly to me never speaking to Gray again, even though he was the boy I was most interested in, because I wanted to marry Popuri and there was too much risk of him getting to her before I could. The reason why I didn’t go into more detail about the relationship between those two when I was talking about them earlier is because I straight up don’t know it, I couldn’t risk giving them a chance to get together.

The thing is, even if I hadn’t forced Gray and Popuri’s cutscenes to stop, I still wouldn’t actually know what their relationship is like, because I have not beaten this game. I know what the ending entails and I can reasonably expect I probably would not have gotten an excellent one, but I’m sure it still would have been fine. I stopped playing the game entirely before I even managed to get married. Why? Because I couldn’t get any of Popuri’s heart events to trigger. I had her hearts maxed out and had a blue feather ready to go in my pocket, so I could turn on the game and marry her right away anytime I wanted to. But I wanted to trigger the little events, even if they’re just a couple seconds of some pixels talking to me on a screen. They’re cute. And it made me sad that I couldn’t see them for some imperceptible reason. So I stopped playing and didn’t pick the game back up.

I don’t remember how close I was to the end of the game, I know I was at least in year 2, but I don’t even remember how much longer the game is after that. Probably a good amount. I had definitely gotten most of the events you could get at this point, since multiple other characters had gotten married, and the farming wasn’t something I really enjoyed so I can’t say I wasn’t at least a little bored by this point, but I wasn’t frustrated with the general mechanics of the game. The days were long enough, but not too long, that I had just enough time to go anywhere I wanted and do what I needed before night came. I could still talk to characters and go to festivals and play minigames. But I didn’t want to, because the game wasn’t doing what it seemed like it was supposed to for some arbitrary reason and that frustrated me enough to make me stop. When the fun of a game is found more in experiencing special events rather than anything else, the player feels cheated out of their good time when those events are too hard to find or can be missed outright, and that’s exactly what I experienced.

Parting Thoughts

The ending, according to what I've read, is very similar to the SNES endings, in that you’ll get different results based on all of the different things you’ve done. Whether you’re married, how many crops you shipped, how many animals you have, how well liked you are by the town… I imagine it’s not quite the victory lap that SNES’s ending was with its little cutscenes, since apparently all you get are comments on how well you performed by various people in the town, but it still seems nice and rewarding! At least like more of a reward than whatever the hell GB1 was trying to do. It seems like a perfectly good ending that it would be nice to see myself someday.

Despite all my troubles with this game, I believe HM64 is still the best one out there– at least that I’ve played yet. The events are plentiful and the content is meaty. The repetitive day to day dialogue still has the simple breath of life that SNES did, that manages to make the most out of a small amount. Don’t get me wrong, this game came out in 1999, I’m giving it a lot of praise but the characters still repeat the same line to you every day, and they still freeze in place until you leave the room. It’s revolutionary, but this is comparing it to a game on the literal Super Nintendo. Absolutely pick up this game to try it out, but keep those expectations tempered. That said, I never picked up this game nor knew a thing about it until I was well into my 20’s, but the moment I started playing, it hit me with a wave of nostalgia as if I’d known this game my whole life. At least to me, the look and feel of the game were like coming home to a childhood I never had.

Will I pick up this game again with the intent to beat it? Maybe! Hard to say for sure when I’m trying to play decades worth of games and write about them at a comprehensive level. What I do know is that this is exactly what I want more farming games to be. It’s a game that has thoughts about life, and about death, both good and bad. And I think this is the perfect context to share those thoughts.

#hm posting #harvest moon #story of seasons #harvest moon 64 #hm64 #m.txt

56 notes · View notes

beautifulpersonpeach · 9 months

Text

A few days ago I responded to an ask, explaining that Korean K-pop stans overall are the more intense version of whatever you see on the international side, and that one way k-fans perceive international fans is that international k-pop stans are easier to manipulate and rile up.

For anyone who is aware of the subway scare and the supposed link to ARMY and BTS, pay very close attention to what’s happening right now as a case study demonstrating what I wrote, happening in real time.

As a quick overview:

1 - This happened about an hour before Yoongi’s live where he showed his tattoo

2 - About an hour after this happened, an ARMY coming back from Yoongi’s concert, watching his livestream on their way home, reacts to his tattoo by screaming while in the subway. They record themselves and post the video on Twitter. The tweet itself is deleted now so I can’t link it, but I’ll link the OG video in point 5.

3 - After that ARMY posted their reaction to Yoongi’s tattoo, this Korean k-pop stan claims a fan screamed next to them on the train and caused panic and a stampede. This account’s most recent activity is from 2022, but the first thing they tweet in 2023 is that an ARMY caused a stampede because of Yoongi. Okay.

4 - One of the followers of that account then retweets that account to post an edited version of the ARMY reaction video, blurring out the reaction on the train, and further linking the two events (1) an ARMY screaming about Yoongi, (2) a resulting stampede that needed police intervention. This video is then used as the basis for user posts and articles written on k-blogs which then get translated as user posts on Allkpop and Pannchoa.

5 - For reference, this is the OG video from that ARMY showing what actually happened on the train. Note how there’s no panic in the train.

***

Basically, two events separated by about an hour are conflated on purpose by linked anonymous accounts on the Korean side, quickly translated into English and spread on the international side through k-pop gossip blogs like Allkpop, which Korean soft media (blogs etc) then picks up and takes as further credit to the underlying claims, though those claims are false.

And voila, a scandal is born.

Now, this isn’t to say BTS, ARMY, and people affiliated with them never do anything wrong and can never have a legit scandal. For example, I think anybody screaming for no good reason in a packed subway train is an idiot and should face some kind of consequence if harm is caused. But that’s not what happened here. What that ARMY did was stupid but harm wasn’t caused and Korean antis instead used it as an opportunity to link BTS with an incident that happened an hour earlier.

Occasionally, some of you might’ve seen me write about ‘manufactured controversy’ before, usually in passing when discussing something else. I remember I’ve mentioned it a few times such as during Jimin’s missed insurance payments scandal, during Jungkook’s Itaewon scandal, and also Min Heejin re: NewJeans (after just 5 minutes of looking at the original claims in Korean. The only thing holding the majority of the claims against MHJ together is sheer willpower and vibes atp). Someone has also asked me about hate ‘slave rooms’ before (context was Twice attacked by slave room hate) and I responded that hate in Korea towards people in the k-pop industry, is incredibly organized and insidious. And the bigger the target, the bigger the fall and the bigger the payout.

Please keep that in mind when you read shit online. Keep your eyes open and your wits about you. Become more media literate and learn how to think for yourself. Seriously. Because in this machine called k-pop, nearly everything about it is designed to suck you in till you have no idea which way is up. Pay attention, please.

2026 is still a long way off and we’ll have many incidents like this before then.

Good luck everyone.

#bts #K-pop #kpop industry #kpop fandom #fandom behavior #fandom discourse #bts army #fandom behaviour

93 notes · View notes

caffeinewitchcraft · 2 years

Text

An Exercise in Mary Sue

(story under the cut)

This week’s short story is more of an exercise. I’ve seen a lot of discussion lately about “cringe-y” YA as more and more authors self-publish or get popular via social media.

When I was a teenager and just started writing, one of my biggest fears was creating a Mary Sue. Mary Sues were very Bad and could get you bulled online. They were too powerful, too beautiful, too not-like-other-girls. People would look down on writers who incorporated these elements into the MC and tell them to stop writing entirely.

Now, in my late 20s, I’ve been thinking about that time in my life more and more. Writing was my hobby, sure, but reading was my escape. And, as a teen, I wanted to escape. I wanted to read about characters who were all-powerful, who were confident, who were loved and respected. I wasn’t getting that fulfillment in my daily life, but I was getting that from books.

So why, when I loved reading them so much, was I so afraid of writing Mary Sues?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong in wanting to read or wanting to write an over-powered character. But I’ve come to the realization that it’s HOW you do it that matters. The biggest legitimate criticism against these types of characters is that they’re not believable. How does a teenager defeat a Dark Lord with fifty years of experience? Why does the orphan know how to wield a lightsaber better than those who’ve trained with it for a lifetime? Why is the prophesied hero wittier than the Generals who’ve been planning this battle all along?

“Mary Sue” stories are always missing an explanation. They “tell” rather than “show.” That style of writing never allows a reader to fully engage and forces them to remain in a critical position. There’s no information for the reader to work with! That’s a really frustrating experience and, as a connoisseur of the Mary Sue, it’s one I know well.

I rebel against the idea of “cringe” in writing. So this week I wrote the opening to a YA book with aaaall the hallmarks of a Mary Sue.

Our main character (Junipera, of course) is the most powerful vampire in her Family despite being one of the youngest. She has long silver hair and black eyes that turn red when she’s angry. She is gorgeous and seemingly all-knowing. She’s contemptuous of those around her and effortlessly outwits them no matter the situation. She is Edgy and Arrogant and everything I have tried not to write for most of my life.

BUT I sort of love how she turned out?

As I’ve worked on pulling together two books to release over the next few weeks, this has been extremely soothing for me. I’ve managed to keep finding the joy in writing because of this exercise and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Or, at the very least, I hope that those of you who may be skeptical are given a different angle to think about Mary Sues and their place in literature.

Thanks for reading!

She should have at least changed clothes before falling on top of the covers last night.

Junipera pinches the bridge of her nose without getting up. Her black button-down shirt sticks unpleasantly to her side and the scent of iron fills the air. She doesn’t need to move her legs to know that her jeans are similarly soaked alongside her black, leather boots. She’d been so tired last night that getting into bed with blood-stained clothing had seemed a good compromise to falling asleep in the shower.

Of course, she didn’t know she’d be having a visitor this morning. Or, rather, another one.

The knock comes right on time. Firm and loud in the quiet of the early morning. Junipera’s lip curls. Impetuous. If she was in her territory, no one would dare knock like that on her bedroom door after a late night. They wouldn’t dare to knock at all.

But she isn’t in her territory, is she?

“Come in.”

The door – pale pine with brass hinges, ornate as all things are here – glides open. The woman who slips into her room, softly closing the door behind her, is as familiar a face as any in this place. The “assistant” the Raven Family assigned to her when she first arrived is very good at looking harmless. Her wide, clear eyes are soft as they take in the dishevelment of Junipera’s room. If she has an opinion on the bloody footprints leading from the shattered window to the bed, she doesn’t show it. As an assassin, Madison is probably used to blood.

She should look surprised at least. Junipera sits up, wincing as her long, silver hair sticks to the pillow. A shower would have at least saved her hair from the matts of dried blood in it. If she liked Madison better, she’d tell her that before one of the Ravens noticed that she wasn’t very good at keeping her cover.

“Ma’am,” Madison says. Her voice is neutral and calm, but her lips are thin as she looks over Junipera’s boots. “You aren’t to go out.”

Ten years ago, Junipera would have laughed out loud at that. Hell, in her territory she might have at least smiled. But Junipera has been playing this game a lot longer than Madison knows.

Junipera hunches in on herself. Her vampiric complexion won’t let her blush, but she ducks her head against Madison’s gaze and averts her eyes. “I was hungry.”

“That’s what the servants are for,” Madison says. A note of disapproval rings in the words. Madison is getting comfortable. “They would have brought you something if you called for them.”

“I rang,” Junipera says. She eyes the bell on her nightstand and makes sure to rub at her fingers where Madison can see. While the Ravens are blessed with immunity to silver, Junipera is not. The silver bell is a taunt, though she doesn’t know from who. The Lord and Lady of the Family? The inner court? The servants? “I rang as long as I could, but nobody came.”

Junipera peeks out from behind her curtain of silver hair. Is that a smirk tucked into the corner of Madison’s mouth? What a fool.

“You’re expected at breakfast,” Madison says. She walks over the broken glass to the window and snaps the curtains closed. While the Ravens are able to walk during the day, full sunlight hurts them. Junipera is the one with immunity to that. Madison spins on her heel. “You’ve made quite the mess, ma’am. The servants will have a hard time replacing the window before evening.”

Does Madison expect an apology? Junipera feels her black eyes flare red and keeps her head ducked to hide them from Madison. She breathes in deeply through her nose. “…I didn’t mean to break the window.”

She did mean to throw her would-be killer through it last night. It breaking was unexpected. Her Family always kept bulletproof glass in the main residence. Maybe the Raven Family didn’t have the coffers to do the same?

“They will manage it,” Madison says. There’s a twist of satisfaction in her aura. Did she hear an apology from Juniper where none existed? “Raven Manor has grown accustomed to vampires with very fine control. It will do them good to be reminded of what lay beyond our borders.”

Fine control. Junipera has to admit that the elders of the Raven Family have it. Even she has a hard time sensing them in the manor, gathering in the depths to conspire against her Family. She says, “Oh…I see.”

“Breakfast is in one hour,” Madison says. She crunches over the broken glass to loom at the side of Junipera’s bed. Too close for an assistant. “You can’t go looking like that.”

Ah. Now Madison isn’t doing too good of a job of hiding her disdain. It seeps into her aura like swamp water. Why do I have to take care of this spoiled brat? Uncouth. Dirty. Not suited for the Raven Family.

Even Junipera has her limits.

She lifts her head to look up at Madison, tilting her chin just so. Her hair slides like silk over her shoulders and drapes along the curve of her hip. The rest is an instinct. Press her shoulders back, lift her chest, blink her long lashes just a few too many times, eyes wide and dark. She doesn’t dare let her aura touch Madison’s, not when she’s doing her best to appear harmless, but the effect is enough judging by the way Madison’s breath hitches. “Looking like what?” Junipera asks.

“J-just get dressed,” Madison says. She pats at her black bun as if checking for fly aways. She takes great interest in the Raven Family portraits on the wall. “Bathe. Be presentable.”

“In that order?” Junipera bites her lower lip as if in genuine confusion. “C-can I bathe first?”

“Obviously,” Madison snaps. She stumbles back when Junipera swings her legs over the edge of the bed, but then firms her stance. “One hour, ma’am.”

“That’s pretty fast,” Junipera says. Her fingers tangle in the bedsheets on either side of her and she presses her lower lip out in a pout. “Maybe if I had help in the bath…”

Madison pretends not to hear her. “I must go now, ma’am. Don’t hesitate to ring the bell if you need assistance.”

“But the silver hurts—”

Madison flees.

Junipera crosses her legs and leans her chin on one hand as she considers the door Madison just slammed. She accepted this mission from her Family out of boredom. It was different than being deployed to battle or sent to recover this or that ancient relic from ruins. The political espionage involved in this one had intrigued her. She’d gone into this with high hopes. She’d never seen the inner workings of a Family as well-established as the Ravens. She thought she might learn something from the vampires who were so famous for their speed, their wit, their bloodthirst.

Junipera didn’t expect to be bored here too.

She sighs, rubbing a hand over her hair as she stands. Too late to regret now. Until she finds the information her Family sent her for, she’s stuck here.

She goes to shower without ringing the bell. Truthfully, the pain of the silver doesn’t bother her that much. She could ring it, but why bother with something so futile? None of the Raven’s servants will answer her summons. They treat foreign ambassadors badly for a Family known for their politics.

If she has her way, they’ll learn to regret that.

-----------------------

Seriously had so much fun writing this and even more fun re-reading this exercise. The inner child in me already wants the next chapter.

Thank you for letting me post something a little off-beat today!

Patreon(X)

Next week’s story is already posted! Berthe the Green Witch (3rd person)

Summary: Traditional witches and green witches don't always see eye to eye. With a life on the line, Berthe is very persuasive.

Thanks for reading!

#my writing #short story #mary sue #long post

638 notes · View notes

ultrasonicbath · 2 years

Text

as the u.s. tour comes to a close, i want to take a moment to talk about a phenomenon i’ve seen taking place within mcr internet fan spaces these last few months, my thoughts on it, and how i think it relates back to digital media literacy.

(before we start, i want to make it clear that i’m just some guy and i am definitely not the most qualified person to talk about this, but i think some of the things in this post really, really need to be said. my hope is not necessarily to change your mind or to “get you on my side,” but to encourage you to think critically and independently, even during your daily scroll on social media.)

————

so, what is this ominous phenomenon i’m talking about? i’m referring to some of the comments i’ve seen mcr fans make regarding gerard’s gender—specifically the public, speculative, and seemingly unironic ones that attempt to put a label or a semblance of a label on his gender nonconformity.

(i think now’s a good time to mention you should read this entire post before engaging with or commenting on it. stay with me. we’re in this together.)

here is a post that i think does a good job of explaining this a little more in-depth for anyone who’s out of the loop.

regardless of my personal opinions on all of this, i understand why it’s happening. much of mcr’s fanbase is trans and/or non-binary, and seeking out representation from familiar, comforting figures is not out of the ordinary. i don’t think anyone involved means harm, and this isn’t a callout post. i’m just adding to a discussion i think has been largely one-sided up until recently.

————

what is the point of me making this post? to put it bluntly, i disagree with how much of the discussion around gerard’s gender identity and expression is being conducted.

(again, please stay with me.)

what is it, specifically, that i disagree with? is it the celebration of gerard’s gender nonconformity? is it the possibility they might not identify, partially or wholly, with their gender assigned at birth? is it the joy their gender expression has inspired in many mcr fans?

no. it’s none of those things; not even close. i can’t even put into words how i, a gender nonconforming trans man, felt when gerard wore his cheerleader dress in nashville. it was a special moment and i was so happy to see him happy.

but something that bothers me about the “gender wars” narrative is the idea that anyone who’s not all-in is, if not an outright transphobe, someone with deep-rooted biases they need to work through. i haven’t seen this from everyone, but it’s floated around here and there.

nuance in conversations like this is incredibly important. the human experience is rarely black and white. and i believe the notion that it must be, especially when it comes to topics such as queer identity, largely stems from closed-mindedness and fear, conscious or unconscious.

i have certainly witnessed people online assert that gerard must be cis, and there’s no way he can’t be cis, implying if he ever identified as anything other than cis that would be bad and gross and weird. i strongly disagree with that viewpoint because it’s transphobic and gerard is a real person who none of us know personally who can do whatever the fuck he wants. in the same way, i disagree with the viewpoint that gerard must be trans, and there’s no way he can’t be trans, implying anyone who disagrees is a transphobe who refuses to pay attention. because gerard is a real person who none of us know personally who can do whatever the fuck he wants.

i’m aware gerard has also made comments in the past about his journey with gender identity, the connection he feels to women and femininity, and even his experimentation with drag while he was in college. he’s said he should be referred to with either he/him or they/them pronouns, he’s an earnest supporter of the trans community, and he’s historically rejected the sexist shithead rock-dude stereotype.

i’m not here to downplay any of those things, nor am i trying to invalidate anyone who has taken comfort in or identified with those things. just a couple of points i would like you to think about, though:

some cis people also question their gender identity and/or use multiple sets of pronouns for a multitude of reasons (i’m not saying gerard has to be cis, i’m just giving you an extra viewpoint to chew on);

i’ve personally met plenty of men or male-aligned people who strongly identify with women and femininity. i strongly identify with women and femininity and i’m still 100% a trans man and will throw anyone who tries to tell me otherwise directly into the sun (again, i’m not saying gerard must be a man or male-aligned);

gender nonconformity and transness are complex, nuanced topics. labels can be useful, but they are not a be-all-end-all;

and i’m going to be blunt here—assuming and/or declaring someone is transfem when they haven’t publicly referred to themselves as such, just because they are comfortable discussing their own femininity and sometimes have a feminine presentation and feminine mannerisms, is basically an upgraded form of gender essentialism and completely disregards the existence and experiences of amab cis-passing queer people and gender nonconforming people. i understand it’s a tough pill to swallow, but intent doesn’t always equal impact, and just because someone may not see it that way doesn’t mean that’s not what they’re doing.

even if gerard is transfem, he’s still a real person who has a right to privacy and autonomy, and he never has to publicly label himself if he doesn’t want to. no one is entitled to seek out the details of his identity, but least of all us, a bunch of strangers on the internet who will probably never have a full conversation with him.

not one of us is an “authority” or “expert” on gerard way or my chemical romance. we can learn about the band’s history and public personas or laugh at the funny, quirky parts of their lore or cry when we think about how far they’ve come in the public eye, but what gives us the right to dig into every tiny crevice of gerard’s work and interactions and public existence searching for “clues” as to whether or not he’s trans? what gives us the right to label his gender identity for him—a process that is incredibly personal? i know “parasocial” is basically just another hollow internet buzzword at this point, but let’s not forget the very real consequences that parasocial relationships can certainly have.

do i think it would be fucking awesome if gerard came out as trans tomorrow? absolutely. do i also think it’s fucking awesome that they’re an older gnc person? that so many queer people have discovered and accepted themselves in part because of them? that they now exude joy onstage and bravely dress and act the way they do? one million times yes. and we can celebrate those real, concrete, factual things without tinhatting, overstepping boundaries, or jumping to conclusions. if they were to come out as trans tomorrow, that wouldn’t invalidate any of my arguments or make the behavior i’m critiquing acceptable, because the point isn’t about whether or not gerard is trans, the point is about how some of mcr’s fanbase is treating them.

gerard has uplifted and respected us time and time again without even knowing us as individuals. so i want you to take a moment to sincerely reflect and ask yourself this question: where is our respect for him?

————

alright. i’m glad you’re still here. let’s talk about what can actually be done about this.

i think a lot of this problem boils down to a lack of critical thinking. yes, that’s thrown around a lot as a clapback on this website, but i don’t mean it as an insult. we’re all guilty of not thinking critically, myself included. especially in the age of the internet, it’s impossible to be perfect all the time, when we’re bombarded with information from every angle.

this is why learning about and consistently practicing media literacy is so important. it’s something i’m passionate about because i’ve seen firsthand, time and time again, how it can make or break a person and their worldview, to the point that i spent hours writing about it for my upper-level journalism courses (before i dropped out lol) and worked for two semesters as an editor for a college newspaper.

if these conversations about gerard were happening in private group chats between friends who already know one another, my opinions on the topic itself would still stand, but it wouldn’t be any of my business and i obviously wouldn’t think to write an entire post about it. but everything changes when these discussions are had on a public platform with little regard for nuance.

“misinformation,” or the unintentional spread of false information—not to be confused with disinformation, where the person spreading it knows what they’re saying isn’t true—might not be a totally accurate descriptor for some of what’s going on here, honestly. none of us can prove what gerard is thinking or feeling. but based on what we do know, what he’s publicly and concretely shared with us, i think it’s as close as we can get. a lot of the posts i’ve seen don’t read to me as “hehe funny celebrity headcanon that’s obviously just for fun.” or even “i relate to this person’s art and/or publicized experiences, but i understand i don’t know them and at least some of that is just projection.” rather, they seem to make invasive leaps and use inaccurate vocabulary while simultaneously taking themselves very, very seriously, and that concerns me more than if a random tumblr user was just trolling to start fandom drama or something.

to put things into perspective, this is why every single one of my journalism professors drilled it into my head that you have to get your news from multiple sources. those sources must have differing perspectives and you need to look at every single one with a critical eye, no matter how trustworthy they may seem (listen, i get it’s way more complicated than that and i could go off on a whole other tangent about the glaring problems with mainstream news media in the united states and not in a cringefail right-wing way, but this is an mcr blog, so let’s just focus on the basic principle here).

obviously, i don’t think anyone should engage with transphobes unless it’s for the sake of making stronger counter-arguments, because their beliefs are provably harmful and false. but someone making good-faith criticisms of speculating about a stranger who has not publicly come out as trans and/or non-binary is markedly different. i’m not the only person who’s written something like this, and i encourage everyone to seek out similar posts and think about the points they’re making, even if you don’t agree with every single one of them.

this speculative commentary on gerard’s identity has spread like wildfire and created a polarizing echo chamber, from what i’ve seen. i understand why. but it’s still deeply worrying to me. seeing as this is primarily happening on tumblr, i’m concerned less because i think gerard will ever see or care about these posts (that’s obviously still important, though), and more because of what this says about how people in mcr fanspaces view celebrities they feel strongly about and engage with information they see online at large.

please do research on digital media literacy, and please use reputable sources with authority on journalism and communications to do so. don’t take what you see on social media at face value. don’t trust any one social media user to feed you commentary or shape your viewpoints, and that includes me. read with a critical eye. think about the possible implications and intentions behind the words other people use, big or small, and why those might be there. be aware of your own biases and blindspots. remember that you’ll never be perfect, not even close. and while you’re at it, learn more about the experiences of gnc people, and the experiences of queer people of all different ages, backgrounds, cultures, races, identities, perspectives, lived experiences, etcetera. if you can, engage in diverse irl lgbtq+ spaces. they put things into perspective in a way the internet never will.

but i still use tumblr in 2022, so what do i know?

————

if there’s anything you think i overlooked or misconstrued in this post, tell me! i want this to be a living, breathing conversation, not a monologue. these are important issues and they deserve our time and attention. thank you so much for reading.

#terfs and truscum don't fucking touch this post btw you're not welcome in this conversation or anywhere near my blog #tumblr like fucked up the spacing between words for some reason but man idc anymore i've already been working on this for way too long #mcr #my chemical romance #gerard way

413 notes · View notes

i-eat-nail-polish · 3 months

Text

Hey I’m gonna probably post more serious stuff because I need to have discussions with people about Palestine. For one I live in an area and am surrounded by people who aren’t pro Palestinian. They don’t take anything surround boycotts or information in general about the genocide serious at all because it doesnt effect them. It’s starting to wear on me because there’s no one to cope (idk if that’s the right word) with what I see online on a daily basis. Ever since mid October or so? (When the tik tok algorithm caught up with the time) I’ve seen countless atrocities that I’ve only ever seen in video games or movies played out in real life against real people. I learned what real bombs sound like both far away and up close because of these videos. Lately I’ve also started to dream about being trapped in Gaza with that feeling of death looming. It sounds dramatic but it’s true. Every day I’m thankful that I’m constantly shown information about Palestine and surrounding Arab countries and I’m also in shock. I’m in shock for a few reasons. 1: I’ve watched for months now, a country, a land and it’s people go through something worse than hell and nobody around feels the same sadness and basic human empathy. No one cares to take in that there’s a massive loss of life and culture and future for whatever reason. It’s gut renching to think about it. 2: I can’t help beyond witnessing and documenting. It seems stupid and corny to think that we’re privileged to have phones but documenting this horrible event through a phone camera is so incredible for history. It just feels almost insulting that that’s all I can do as a poor college student in America. Yes, I can call my representatives which thankfully where I live do support a free and liberated Palestine, but others won’t even do much as think about their constituents. It’s hard because it feels like we’re trying to move a volcano with plastic beach shovels. So all we can do is sit and save videos before social media giants take them down. 3: coming to terms that nobody looks out for each other on a large scale. Because I follow now many journalists from various sectors ranging from on the ground in Gaza to political scientists giving me lessons on the United Nations history, I’m shocked at how all of it is fake. Nothing makes sense anymore. You’re telling me because 2 countries won’t vote on a ceasefire but 98% do we can’t move on with it? Why does the US get privileges that to my limited knowledge no one else has the same power leverage as. How has nobody else stepped in when MANY war crimes are being committed. Why do they even exist if countries are never seriously prosecuted? Why even have rules if you can’t follow them? It’s disheartening to watch but I can’t give up hope. I’m not giving up hope because that’s all we have. I may not have direct ties to Palestine but as if needless suffering is enough for me to care, I care especially for the queer family in Gaza. They are as much apart of the queer family as my roommates are. I don’t know if and when we lose LGBTQ+ people in Gaza but I know it’s happening so I cry for the loss of our family. I need to see an end to this. I need to. I don’t know how to process any of what I’ve witnessed or feel right now or even what else I can do to help stop a genocide. I need to talk to people so please may you strike up conversation. Correct me in any place, tell me about the latest boycotts, show me protests. Please converse we have to keep hope alive.

#palestine #free palestine #free gaza #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #pro palestine #🍉#activism #coping #long post #alhamdulillah #inshallah #palestine will be free #free palestine until its backwards #gaza #gaza genocide #genuinely asking #please help #boycott divest sanction

26 notes · View notes

lavender-teardroplettes · 10 months

Text

Hi, it’s me, a BIPOC creator ready to talk about Tom

I’m going to preface this in saying that I was really hoping that Tom would listen to the people who were genuinely disappointed in him and wanted him to do better. I want to highlight that people were expressing their own past history with right wing grooming towards racist ideologies, dog whistles, and downplaying of Black and Indigenous suffering during the peak of the situation on top of all the hurt that comes with another trans person not understanding how bad their internalized transphobia is. In light of Tom deleting his tumblr, changing the L4L twitter username and privating both that account and the main one in question….I have some points as a disappointed ex-fan that I hope extends to other communities.

First and foremost; I would like to be clear and transparent:

I was one of the POC creators that asked QLP from Florescent Red Studios to echo my feelings at the time. I work a lot, I try and vividly express this and didn’t have the energy at the time to address this despite having a lot of words that I have gratefully seen echoed through the situation as it has developed. A few of them have carried over from seeing devs being harassed from a separate situation over the past year that I have a lot of words on. If you’re the perpetrators of that event I highly suggest you apologize and work on yourselves, but that’s an issue for another time.

To be honest, I will always be disappointed in people like Tom who hide these sort of hateful views, but…sometimes I can’t say I’m not surprised. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, because, in all honesty, I love this community we’ve built despite the drawbacks that come with making something new out of nothing and wanting to support other people. I can say for certain that a lot of us were the weird kids, and it’s more than amazing to have that safety in community, but I can’t ignore that there are some issues.

We’re still people despite being online, people who sometimes can be more busy than usual. Tone is hard to pick up on and sometimes it’s hard to fully communicate how you feel, but immediately jumping into hatred and defensive mode is never the way to go, and there should be room for open discussion when people are hurt and still trying to make space to educate others. There should be space for open discussions because we have this mediation tool that we can walk away from and come back to when we look at it objectively and not emotionally.

Tom, if you see this, I want to ask you if you actually fucking care at all about me and what a lot of people in the BIPOC community went through/are currently going through in the hands of conservatives that have groomed you into their ideology. I want to ask you if you really know about the actual fetishization we face if it isn’t straight up murder, misogyny/misogynoir, etc? Because it sounds to me like you were a tourist and I’ve strictly only been to either sides of the coast because you will never catch me in the South in this country unless I am in severely Black populated cities. And even then you’d never fucking catch me in the South.

It’s hard for me to touch on the grooming topic further because I’m a victim of multiple instances of CSA….I don’t believe in just pointing at one community, I think every community should keep themselves in check when it comes to shaming and ousting out p*dos and N*zis at the least- because again, they shouldn’t fucking be tolerated.

I will echo this sentiment: if you don’t condone what you’re writing about, you shouldn’t be condoning or perpetuating worse actions in a community full of BIPOC, disabled, marginalized, etc fans in real life.

On the note of BIPOC, please…please actually learn about our history and struggles. Whether it’s taking a history course, watching BIPOC educators….it’s something I think people should really learn about. It’s painful, it’s hard, but it’s what we have to live with everyday and don’t have the energy to remind people of all the time because of how draining it is.

I will be clear, I’m expressing my disappointment. I don’t want any harassment towards anyone, you shouldn’t be lowering yourself to that level.

But- I’m fucking tired and am urging people to do better. Please.

#si speaks #lurking for love #yan vn community #tbh I didn’t really wanna type this out #I hate being this guy #but I had time to really figure out my words #I’m disappointed #please do better #I only want the best for people #I’m also on mobile so sorry for the long post #I can’t speak for the Jewish fans hurt in this situation #but I see you #I hear you #I extend my love and support to you #carnivorekitty

66 notes · View notes

neptunedivine · 1 year

Text

astro observations pt. i

✧ neptune in aquarius generation ✧

(tw: possible conversational topics)

Hi everyone! I wanted to first say thank you so much to everyone who liked, reblogged, and/or followed me after my recent post. I wasn’t expecting that response at all and it really made my week!! I also wanted to mention that I am not an astrologer, I’m a computer science student (whose semester starts in a week) so consistency isn’t a strong suit rn. Regardless, I appreciate the support. 🥰

Here are a few observations I’ve noticed with the Aquarius Neptune Generation (as someone with this placement) - I do relay my points back to astrology but these are just my opinions. It’s okay to disagree! :)

✧ for context, Neptune rules over the zodiac sign Pisces and themes of dreams, illusions, mystics, intuition, imagination, etc. Aquarius and those who carry placements in this sign (more obviously if the placement is prominent) express characteristics of intelligence, invention, humanitarianism, friendliness, altruism, and reformation.

fake activism ✧ I feel like a lot of people in this generation are only activists online, or the power they either choose to or believe that they have is digital. Like they will repost an infographic about a human rights issue but won’t make any physical permanent change (i.e. a donation or bringing it up in conversations with their friends to spread more awareness). That activism and reformation being talked about is the Aquarius feature, but the lack of permanence is the Neptunian feature.

✧ I could go deeper into this but I feel like the discussion could be seen as controversial, so I’ll spare the details.

fake wealth ✧ There are a lot of influencers and people on the internet that flex their wealth online. Presenting this false persona of themselves. In reality, this isn’t true. I feel like a lot of the time we’re told this but without knowing how many people are doing this. Traditionally the 11H is governed by Aquarius and one of the themes of the 11H is community, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a lot of people. I feel like when Saturn transits Taurus in the future, this could come to light?

(Saturn will transit through Taurus until fall 2029, go retrograde in Aries until spring 2030, and will remain in Taurus until spring 2032)

✧ The only reason I infer this is that Saturn returns are like check-ins to make sure you’re putting in the work to take care of yourself, your life, and your decisions relating to your Saturn placement. If you have, you will be rewarded by Saturn, and if not you will be disciplined. And something about lying to people about your wealth seems valid of that discipline.

being chronically online ✧ This one annoys me because I swear the world would be a much better place with common sense and critical thinking skills…anyway. A lot of people try to be a voice for what they view as an underrepresented community, without questioning the validity of their statement.

today someone in a comment section on my fyp said that “being chronically online is an insult to chronically ill people” 😐😑😐

that’s all for now. see you later!

#Neptune #neptune in aquarius #11H #11th house #astrology #astro observations #astrology observations #astrology opinions #saturn in taurus #Aquarius

165 notes · View notes

suedesongs · 7 days

Text

These Are The Suede Songs 001: Early Recordings

Suede’s early trajectory is often described, especially by the band themselves, as “the world’s longest overnight success”. Four years of slogging the toilets of London, from playing humiliating gigs to, on one occasion, nobody at all, to appearing on the front page of Melody Maker, may sound quick, but in musical terms can feel like a lifetime. This was during the era of musical trends coming and going in rapid succession, a little like fashion microtrends today. Within those four years, Baggy and the Second Summer of Love, The Stone Roses and Spike Island, raves and ecstasy, made way for American grunge - precisely the opposite, and amongst this cultural shift, quietly grafting their way, were Suede.

Whilst there aren’t a great deal of surviving bootlegs or demos from this era, I still felt incredibly compelled to cover what I could find in a dedicated post. Research was rather fruitless at times, and I found much of the writing on this period of the band’s career to be marred (cough) by the insistence of male writers to throw all of their energy into a somewhat troubling obsession with what is perceived as the infamous Anderson-Frischmann-Albarn “love triangle”. I took to Twitter (or, blegh, X) to vent my frustrations, and received a reply from my friend Tasha who, much more eloquently than I, expressed how Justine Frischmann is viewed as merely an object in an interpersonal drama, rather than a fleshed out musician in her own right. Are women doomed to simply be accessories to their male counterparts? I find this disheartening when Frischmann is so integral to not only the Suede “story”, but, in my opinion, to what would go on to become the sound we all know, and love.

My analysis will frequently include my personal opinions, and should not be taken as definitive. Where necessary to the discussion of the songs, tidbits of info may be provided in order to “set the scene”. This series should not be used as a biography, but instead an exploration of a body of work. It will be by no means objective. I’m a massive Suede fan. I’ve travelled up and down the country for gigs, queued from as early as 6am for a coveted barrier spot, my cat is (in a roundabout way) named after an obscure Bloodsports-era B Side. I’m a self-professed fangirl. Having said this, I’ll do my best to not let this get in the way. And with all of the preliminaries seen to, we begin with,

Just A Girl (Anderson/Frischmann)

Though credited to Anderson-Butler, this light, airy folk ballad is reportedly the oldest surviving Suede tune, dating far before Bernard Butler joined. The version that appears online, and on the deluxe edition of the debut, is likely a home demo recorded by Brett Anderson and Justine Frischmann.

Anderson, in his memoir Coal Black Mornings, explains the titular girl, “north of England way”, is a Middlesborough-born Chemistry student called Emily, with whom he shared a flat on Daisy Bank road in Longsight, Manchester, in the year after he moved from Haywards Heath to the rainy industrial Northern city. ‘Just A Girl’ really couldn’t be set in any city other than Manchester. It describes the beginnings of a fond friendship, perhaps more, distinctly against the backdrop of a harsh, wet winter, overlooked by grey skies and red-bricked former warehouses. It’s the first, blushing, awkward flushes of young love. It’s leaving your University lectures at half past three when it’s already pitch dark. It’s when you say something you shouldn’t to the person you fancy after a few drinks. It’s huddling under the covers to stay warm, the excitement of closeness and companionship.

I typically have a complete, and near visceral, aversion to anything, musically or otherwise, that can be described as “twee”. Just A Girl, I feel, does undeniably dangle its harmonies and lyrical depictions of turning the page of one’s favourite book perilously close to the jaws of this accusation.Yet, I simply cannot bring myself to dislike it. Whilst musically competent, if a little naive, it’s sweet and genuine, and for that, it’s rather lovely.

There are already some allusions to Anderson’s later lyrical themes; the combination of love and tragedy as he laments how “it could have been so different if we’d only had more time”. Anderson, as we’ll explore, is rarely one to write a straight love song. No matter how they may seem, there is always a thread of tragedy, or drama, which underpins the affair and protects against it veering into saccharine territory.

For a few years now, I’ve cited the “ashtray eyes and bootlace ties” line to be a direct harbinger of some of Anderson’s later lyrics, most likely thinking of 2011's ‘Brittle Heart’,from his solo album Black Rainbows. However, this is in fact, lifted from Ian Drury’s ‘Sweet Gene Vincent’, more directly alluded to with Anderson and Frischmann lamenting how “Sweet Gene Vincent was never that good”.

According to Anderson, on regular rotation on the turntables of himself, Frischmann and Mat Osman around this time, were a band called The Lilac Time. Quoted in David Barnett’s comprehensive biography, Love And Poison, he describes them as “quite light, leftfield pop sort of thing (...) lots of major seventh chords”, and this influence is abundantly clear on ‘Just A Girl’, and would have possibly done even more had it made it to the studio around this time.

Frischmann’s, when she and Anderson met, record collection was largely comprised of folk music. In an irritating display of arrogance, Anderson insisted that these records would “no longer be listened to '' with him now in the equation. This decision would, of course, prove seminal in the trajectory of Frischmann’s music career in Elastica, as Anderson introduced her to spiky post-punk, however I find this to be rather ironic considering the undeniable folky nature of this particular song.

‘Just A Girl’ would later be re-recorded by Anderson and Richard Oakes, possibly around 1994, though reports of this vary, but not released to the public until a B-side was required for the single ‘Attitude’ in 2003. More on that (much) later, of course.

Natural Born Servant (Anderson-Butler)

‘Natural Born Servant’ is the actual first song in our timeline to be written by Anderson-Butler, and sees Suede as close to flirting with Baggy as they ever would.

As a result, this one comes across as rather trite, not to mention overlong, clocking in at six minutes and twenty seconds.

During my initial re-listen in my research for this project, I found myself incredibly puzzled as the chugging, Madchester intro spluttered into a half-hearted groove, before realising I’d gotten it entirely confused with a later track, ‘Be My God’. Frischmann shows herself a competent backing vocalist, possibly more so than Anderson. One YouTube commenter, possibly humorously, alludes to him “doing a Phil Oakey”, and there is indeed a resemblance. Anderson’s, however, is more naive, though he can certainly carry a tune and his voice is pleasant and sweet, possibly to the song’s detriment, when one considers the subject matter.

Much like a large proportion of Suede’s work, ‘...Servant’ sees Anderson dallying with sexual imagery, and more specifically, BDSM imagery. This attempt, however, whilst enjoyable enough, is surprisingly sexless. It’s almost a feat in itself to write about sex in such a decidedly virginal manner, but I’m glad this was a theme he stuck with throughout his lyrics and it hints at greatness yet to come. More interestingly, however, is the use of sexual imagery as a commentary on class struggle. “You’re a natural born servant/this is the time to open your eyes”, can be viewed as a submissive accepting their place, or a working class individual gaining class consciousness and becoming aware of their oppression in society.

I must say, I’m glad that this was as far as Suede’s relationship with Baggy really went, at least in the recordings I could find and actively listen to. It’s common to speculate of a song like ‘...Servant’ being indicative of a type of “alternate universe” Suede, but I couldn’t disagree more with this. Suede and Baggy just doesn’t work, and they would have always found their sound one way or another.

Justice (Unknown, possibly Anderson-Frischmann-Butler)

Surprisingly, this is the only song of this lot that I find myself drawn to the YouTube search bar to listen to out of choice. It’s almost certainly my personal favourite of all of the pieces we’ve covered here.I even found myself lip syncing to the chorus as I wrote this very paragraph! Oddly, I can’t find too much to say about it. It’s a sweet little, possibly even catchy, slice of Jangle pop. One of the thousands of happy-sad breakup songs of the late 1980s and very early 1990s. Anderson likens it to Aztec Camera’s ‘Oblivious’, which is a far, far better citation than the endless Smiths comparisons I once myself fell privy to, which have since become a cliche.

We again hear Anderson’s vocals not quite having come into themselves yet, there’s a hint of insecurity and hesitancy. They’re so far removed from what we understand as his vocal styling, that one YouTube commenter on the version I found asks if Butler sings vocals. There is present, however, a deep understanding of melody and an undeniable hookiness. I can see myself going back to this one for the odd listen.

Wonderful Sometimes (Unknown, possibly Anderson-Butler)

Gary Crowley, the geezer-ish presenter of the Sunday Afternoon show Greater London Radio, was the host of Demo Clash; a competition held each Sunday on the aforementioned radio station. As the title suggests, this was a show where London bands would send in demos, that would go head-to-head in a public vote. As pointed out in Love and Poison, however, this would largely amount to a game of “who has the most mates”. Anderson would later show dismissal, if not outright disdain for ‘Wonderful Sometimes’. In Dave Thompson’s Suede The Next Life, First Time Around, he describes the song as “shit (...) nothing to get interested in. (...) [GLR] was a little local station, and we’re talking about London where everyone’s in a band.” Still, it would end up on a compilation cassette called What The World Is Waiting For compiled by Adrian Gibson, programmer at Powerhaus on Liverpool Road, N1.

According to the Discogs listing, the idea was to showcase ten up-and-coming bands who were performing at the venue during this time (from a title like that, go figure). There was additionally a launch night at The Powerhaus, and Gibson was interviewed by Crowley to promote the gig.

As for the song itself? ‘Wonderful Sometimes’ contains a few witty one-liners, “you couldn’t liven us up with a cattle prod” and “i’ve heard of happy ever after / it was just a joke but you could die laughing” particularly stick out. Personally, I quite enjoy “Do I just love you ‘cause you look quite good”, but that’s because, as a young-ish woman and a passionate fan, this is an accusation I’ve had levelled at me in the past, and I know I’m not the only one!

‘...Sometimes’ is viewed by many as the holy grail of early Suede recordings, but for something so revered, it’s a decent enough piece of music, but it’s nothing special, even in the context of the other songs we’ve covered. Musically, I try to avoid Smiths comparisons, but here it’s unavoidable as the whiff of William, It Was Really Nothing and even some base notes of Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, is enough to give you a migraine. Butler’s playing really is more Marr-ish than Marr, but drenched and sadistically drowned in a wah-wah pedal at times, eliciting a comparison to Fool’s Gold, though, mercifully, this is over much sooner.

More excitingly is a noticeable shift in Anderson’s vocal styling, now carrying slightly more confidence and having something of a personality. Here, he’s sounding almost like Robert Smith of The Cure, minus the “Robert Smith-isms”. A deliberately but self-consciously Sussex drawl (The Cure, and Smith, were from up the road from Haywards Heath in Crawley), and a slight nasal intonation.

Ultimately, I don’t so much understand the hype around this one - the reviews on RateYourMusic are unanimously positive, but it’s a jolly tune and, likely because of that, decidedly un-Suede.

#suede #suede band #brett anderson #justine frischmann #mat osman #bernard butler

13 notes · View notes

ingravinoveritas · 6 months

Note

just a heads up so you’re aware I’ve sent this blog to both georgia and anna incase they’d like to take legal action against you have a nice day.

Hello there, Anon. I realize that you actually sent this logged in, as I still have Anon turned off at the moment, but for all intents and purposes, this is an Anon, and I appreciate you showing the courage of your convictions by sending your message from a throwaway account.

That being said, I'm amazed at how I've been in multiple fandoms over the years, and as many things change, some things never do. This really is déjà vu all over again, as I got an Anon just earlier this year calling me ugly and accusing me of being jealous of Georgia and AL. The wording of your Ask is different, obviously, but I have a feeling the intent is exactly the same.

I'm assuming, of course, that since you sent Georgia and AL my blog, you also sent the blogs of all the people commenting on my posts over the last few days. And the blogs of the people commenting on @problematicwelshman's posts. Oh, and the names/screenshots of all the commenters on the Daily Mail article, in the interest of thoroughness. Or maybe (and I'm just spitballing here) all of that starts to seem like a pretty big waste of time when you really think about it. Maybe Georgia, for instance, has bigger things to worry about than what I'm writing on my silly blog, things like transphobic lunatics like Graham Linehan and Posie Parker making actual libelous statements accusing David of being a groomer and an abuser. Maybe she's emotionally drained from fighting those battles, fighting on David's behalf and her children's behalf, and does not have the time nor is about to thank you for telling her about my blog. Again, spitballing.

I have to say, though, pseudo-Anon, that I am disappointed. As I've said many times before, I am more than open to hearing from people who disagree with me and sharing those opinions on my blog. This could have been a moment for a real discussion, for you to message me saying, "I don't agree with your perspective on Georgia and Anna, and here's why" and I would have read your thoughts with as much care as I do every Ask that comes into my inbox.

But it seems clear that you find fear to be a strong motivator, hence your decision to threaten me. I think you may have made a miscalculation, however, in assuming I am equally as motivated by it. I recognize what you are doing here for what it is: Intimidation, in an attempt to shut me up. You are free to dislike my thoughts and opinions all you like, and I will never tell you or anyone else that they have to agree with me. But it would also help you to understand that even if you did manage to bully me off of this site, there will always be people posting and saying things that you do not like.

As I've said to others who have sent me similarly hateful Anons, I'm genuinely perplexed as to why you would go to these lengths when you could simply block me and keep scrolling. It's much easier, and there is a lot less likelihood of you being disappointed when things don't work out the way you hoped. And in the end, cultivating your own online experience and learning how to cope with opinions other than yours will go a lot farther than "tattling" on fans that you dislike (such as I've seen fans doing with the Asks they send to Neil).

I normally end these responses by thanking folks for writing in, and while I'm not particularly inclined to do that here, I do appreciate the humor of you ending a threatening Ask with "have a nice day" (as it gave me Grandmama Addams vibes from The Addams Family). So I will sign off with the same:

#anonymous #reply post #haters gonna hate #please have several seats #i can't even with this nonsense #the fact that i even gotta respond to this #as i've said before and will again #'d rather look like a 'bad' fan and talk about the reality of the situation #than look like a 'good' fan by ignoring it #let me know how threatening me works out for you Anon #georgia tennant #anna lundberg #fandom woes #discourse

50 notes · View notes

skeletonmoths · 5 months

Text

Ethel Cain fans

Incoming rant

I don’t typically post anything on my blog that I’ve created or written but I feel the need to comment on something this fandom needs to understand. Hayden does not owe us anything as fans, she has told us time and time again that we have been making her feel uncomfortable, not all of us but you know who you are. Ethel Cain is a character and stage name, and I know Hayden does not mind being called Ethel by fans but that’s not just what I’m taking about, there’s also “Ethel Cain Core” Hayden has explained quite a few times not that this makes her uncomfortable, Ethel Cain and “Preachers Daughter Aesthetic” is weird at best, the aesthetic she uses in her music is Southern Gothic, and Hayden has even had to explain how this aesthetic can be problematic and needs to be used with caution and care, But on top of that I’ve seen people romanticizing the dark topics in her music the same way we did with Lana Del Ray and Nicole Dollaganger , and I can understand to a certain extent why, but again these topics need to discussed with caution and care and not romanized, same with the romanization of poverty and old farm houses I’ve been seeing, and I completely understand that these buildings and images can bring a sense of comfort and nostalgia, but I have seen people who have grown up in comfortable situations typically people who grew up “upper middle class” romanticizing poverty and dirty homes , old farm houses, which I find very strange. Let’s not even get in to the romanticization of the songs “Gibson girl” and “Unpunishable” and the “female rage” title that “Ptolemaea” got Now onto the subject of how fans are treating Hayden. Stop demanding she release new music Hayden recently confirmed she has had to scrap the B-sides and start over, Hayden is a perfectionist with her music and lyrics so CONSTANTLY demanding more from Hayden is going to make the process last longer and don’t forget people were demanding Hayden to work on the B-sides while she was ON TOUR. Hayden has been consistently releasing new ambient music on SoundCloud. And has featured in TWO new songs THIS YEAR yet fans are still demanding more. And the memes and constant “mother” calling and the jokes and out of pocket comments said directly to Hayden is becoming too much. And has said to us multiple times it makes her very uncomfortable. Hayden is not our best friend we do not know her personally and we need to start acting like it. Treat her like a person and a friend when it’s appropriate. Don’t forget about all the transphobic comments and doxing Hayden has been receiving, being deadnamed on tumblr, Hayden has talked about her hate for online culture, and I’ll miss her online presence like the rest of us, but it was only a matter of time for her to delete her tumblr as well. She has given us many warnings to smarten up but we haven’t so she has shown us the consequences. I love Hayden and I love Ethel Cain. But I’m happy she is stepping back and taking the peace for herself instead of snapping at us fans for pushing her to the limit. Thank you for taking your time to read my ranting. And Hayden if you ever come across this post on way or another and take time out of your day to read this, Thank you for everything, Thank you for sharing your art for us fans to enjoy, I hope being away from us fans for awhile brings you a sense of peace and control we keep interrupting

#ethel cain #preachers daughter #daughters of Cain #mother cain

23 notes · View notes

tearsoftime0086 · 5 months

Text

Zero-Sum Escape: A Close Reading of Code Veronica’s Steve Burnside

Introduction + Disclaimers

If you’re a friend/mutual/unfortunate witness to my discovery of Steve Burnside, you might’ve seen this coming. I’ve become an avid enjoyer of the character, which has led to some interesting discussions about him with friends! I’ve decided to write a small (edit: it was supposed to be small) piece on what makes him so interesting, using quotes and cutscenes from the original Code Veronica game. A lot of online discourse around Steve has historically been negative, so I hope this can be a positive primer for folks who want to learn more about him, or even an interesting curio for folks wondering why someone would do such an in-depth read for a one-off character.

This reading will focus strictly on Code Veronica (and not any of the Darkside Chronicles material) – with the full understanding that many aspects of the game are a product of their time, good and bad. I’ll try to cite my evidence as much as possible, but this will obviously be coming from a subjective and modern perspective as a fan of his character! I’m also a fairly new Resident Evil fan, so if anything’s incorrect, please forgive me and let me know! I’d be happy to make edits.

Anyway, this is all in good fun – and to anyone who even reads a single sentence of this, I appreciate your time!

Reference

As a way to “cite” dialogue and cutscenes, I’ll be including rough timestamps to this great video of Code Veronica cutscenes: https://youtu.be/ym46RPHqaSY?si=a6ItTpdOn3rCZq-U. Feel free to follow along, but the text should make sense without the video too.

So, who is this guy, anyway?

Let’s start with the basics. In the game Resident Evil – Code: Veronica (taking place shortly after RE:2), you start as Claire Redfield, recent prisoner of Rockfort Island. Unfortunately, Claire finds herself in the midst of another biohazard outbreak. And what’s worse is that during her escape, a stranger in a watchtower starts shooting at her indiscriminately! (0:05)

When the dust settles, Claire comes face to face with an abrasive teenager named Steve Burnside, a fellow prisoner on the island.

“Uh, sorry about that little misunderstanding…” (0:43)

This, alongside his attempts to be “smooth” – (I mean, who says “Relax beautiful…” unironically?) doesn’t do him any favors for most players. Not to mention his active derision of Claire’s skills – he leaves her with a few choice “tsks” and a “I don’t want you following me, lady. You’ll only slow me down.” (1:30).

This opening scene sets up a few key characteristics for Steve, which I’ll be referencing throughout this piece.

Steve is someone who makes numerous mistakes, ranging from purely accidental to sheer negligence.

Steve puts a heavy emphasis on reliability/dependability. He leaves Claire because he thinks she will “slow [him] down”. We’ll see more examples of his complex with “relying on others” later on.

Where do these traits leave us? A character that ends up being deeply paradoxical, and in my opinion, super fascinating because of it.

“You’ll just end up disappointed if you rely on others”

Claire finds Steve somewhat quickly afterwards, perusing information about her brother, Chris. I think it’s important to recognize Steve’s intent here. If he was purely focused on escaping (and leaving Claire behind), he wouldn’t have bothered looking for any records relating to her. Some folks may argue that he has a crush on Claire already, and is just following teenage impulses. But trust me, there’s more concrete evidence of teenage impulses later. For now, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was trying to help her out – it ties well with point 2.

Steve’s snooping reveals that Chris is being monitored by Umbrella. Claire immediately takes action, contacting Leon about it. At this point, Steve sarcastically tells her,

“That file shows latitude and longitude of this place. Tch, why don’t you send your brother the coordinates and ask him to come help?” (2:20)

When Claire takes him completely seriously, he becomes prickly.

S: “Hey? I was just kidding? There’s no way he could get here, even if he is your brother.” C: “Yes he can; I’m sure of it.” S: “No way. He won’t come. You’ll just end up disappointed if you rely on others. Believe me, I know!”

Steve’s sudden anger and exit demonstrate how much this topic of “reliability” affects him. He’s vocal about his need for self-reliance – and yet, if we take his investigation in a positive light, it’s not like he’s completely selfish in his attempt to escape Rockfort.

Steve is someone who desperately wants to believe in human reliability, and yet has been spurned due to the circumstances of his imprisonment. We’ll see that he tries to emulate it himself, but unfortunately (and perhaps realistically) falls short.

Yet, what really nurtures this desire is Claire – someone who he can finally depend on. The pair’s next encounter comes when Steve is in trouble (if you’ve seen the “Steve is suffering” memes, it’s from this scene). The player hears him yell a pitiful “Help me!” as he bangs against a locked door – so much for relying on yourself.

If Claire solves the puzzle fast enough, Steve escapes and tells her, “That was too close. But I found something. Thanks to… you.” (3:44).

Thus begins the two’s shaky partnership – and believe me, it’s shaky. Steve runs off yet again, only agreeing to give Claire the essential golden lugers if she trades him something “fully automatic”. But Steve’s obviously on better terms with her now, as seen when he emphatically tells her, “See? This is why you need me. I got your back,” later (5:10). Quite cooperative for someone who was crowing about not relying on others.

In the midst of these scenes is a growing desire to look good to Claire – to be someone she can count on.

The knight fantasy – and bitter reality

Steve ends up describing his own motivation pretty well. Claire finds herself stuck with a nasty Bandersnatch, before Steve dramatically comes to her rescue (more on this in the next section). Afterwards, he eagerly proclaims the following:

S: “Oh yeah, that felt good! Don’t worry Claire, your knight in shining armor is here!” C: “You wish – but thanks for the help.” S: “See? This is why you need me. I got your back.” (4:54)

Steve wants Claire to see him as someone she can rely on – as a self-proclaimed knight to save her from the influx of zombies. It’s why he tells her to wait as he clears out the following area with his “new toy” (6:35). He wants to be the hero who saves the day – Claire might not be able to count on others, but she can sure count on him. He even states it outright afterwards:

“See? You can depend on me.” (6:58)

But maybe this is too blatant of a turn even for him, because he immediately backs off and instead mentions his guns instead:

“You see? This thing is a lot more reliable than any person.” (6:59)

Claire takes immediate suspicion of this, however, and starts to ask questions.

C: “Than people?” S: “…” C: “Steve, what were you doing here? Who brought you here, and where’s your family?” S: “Shut up – I don’t want to talk about it!” *shoots his gun at the wall* C: “Steve…” S: “Never mind. Let’s get going.” (7:04)

Note that he punctures this conversation with an angsty emptying of his gun magazine at the wall. This is no knight – this is volatile, teenage behavior. Claire can tell there’s something on his mind, but Steve doesn’t seem to be in the condition to explain anything.

Steve does the same thing four times – aka, analyzing entrances

As a brief interruption (but it ties into the rest, I promise), let’s take a chance to look at the different ways Steve barges into a cutscene. Humor aside, Steve’s physical actions vary across the four different times he comes to Claire’s “rescue”.

Bandersnatch (4:30)

The first rescue is all cliches and edge. Claire’s “knight in shining armor” breaks through a window dramatically. He shoots at the Bandersnatch without even directly aiming at him, walking forward as he shoots with his dual wielded lugers. It’s almost comical as he walks straight up to the Bandersnatch, delivering a kick and single killing shot for good measure.

It’s all impractical – Steve’s incessant wish to dual wield would hardly be effective in real life, let alone everything else here. But this scene, cliche as it may be, reflects what Steve wants to be in front of Claire. He’s the action hero, the knight – the one who can be counted on to swoop in and save the day.

The Infamous Father Scene (8:13)

These heroics fail him once the two encounter his father. No longer is this a fantasy but bitter reality – and Steve can’t find it in him to shoot his infected dad. It’s only when Claire is in peril that he takes action – and this time, it’s impulsive and rough. He unloads all his ammo in a single, shaking shot, continuing to press the trigger even when it’s all gone.

It’s now that Steve tells Claire the full story – his father was caught trying to sell confidential Umbrella information, leaving his mother dead and the two of them locked up here. He morosely tells Claire, “He was a fool to do something so reckless! So stupid…” (10:15). We can see how much his father’s actions have impacted him – his desire for consistency comes from having his familial life ripped apart by the actions of someone he trusted dearly. And now, at the end of it, he is truly alone – the last one left in his family.

Alfred (11:07)

The next time we find Steve, we see a little bit of the Bandersnatch energy back in him – there’s the same aim, the same kick (to open the door) – but it’s less dramatic this time. There’s no slow-motion focus on shattered glass, no cocky final shot. In fact, this encounter leaves Steve visibly hurt – a crack in his armor. Steve’s still trying to be Claire’s dependable rescuer, and yet this encounter shows that he’s not the infallible knight he wishes to be. Far from it, considering the mistakes he'll make later on.

Alfred in Antarctica (21:30)

This cutscene skips forward a little, but it’s a nice final reminder that Steve does genuinely try his best to protect Claire, and succeeds! We see him take two stylish leaps and then shoot a quick few bullets to rescue her from Alfred. He’s still trying to emulate that knight image, but it’s more efficient than his Bandersnatch moment.

The Flight (and THAT SCENE)

After numerous troubles, Claire and Steve are finally able to escape the island. Needless to say, they’re elated and exhausted. Now that the coast is clear, Steve decides to get honest with Claire and apologize:

S: “Claire, I’m sorry. I know I caused a lot of trouble for you.” C: “No; it’s okay. It was hard for both of us.” S: “Well, I really hope you find your brother. I… I know what it’s like to be alone.” C: “Oh Steve…” S: *coughs awkwardly* “So, where should we go now? I can take you anywhere you want to go, Claire.” C: *laughs* “I hear Hawaii’s nice this time of year.” S: “You got it!” (14:20)

(On a personal note, isn’t this scene so cute? If only this was how it all ended…)

It’s here that Steve bares his heart to Claire. It’s clear that his mishaps and snarky remarks have been weighing on him too – he genuinely wants the best for her. When Claire is all too accepting and sympathetic, however, Steve begins to reveal his feelings (in… controversial ways).

After they find out that the plane is out of their control, the two of them take an uneasy rest. In the cutscene at 16:12, we find Claire leaning on Steve – a physical sign of how she relies on him. As if to follow his teenage impulses, Steve leans in for a kiss – only to startle as Claire begins to wake. His notion is thwarted immediately. Steve stands up,leans on the glass, slams the window and sighs.It shows signs of a “what was I thinking?” moment of clarity.

After all, kissing princesses in their sleep is something knights do in fairy tales. And Steve? Well, he’s no knight. He’s someone who’s almost hindered Claire’s escape as much as he’s helped, and he knows that. This thought is only exacerbated with his actions upon their arrival in Antarctica.

Antarctica, where more mistakes ensue

The plane decides to violently crashes into the side of the Umbrella Antarctica base. Steve kicks the door down and jumps first, reaching his arms out to catch Claire. She lands after, only to stumble and leave them both on the ground. Steve pulls her into a hug, which Claire doesn’t quite reciprocate. As she stands up, Steve lays back flat on the floor, sighing. It’s clear he’s jumped the gun, and it leaves him embarrassed. He doesn’t take Claire’s hand back up and tells her that they should split up to try and find a way out (18:55).

Steve’s love causes another mistake shortly after. The two of them try to break through the base wall with a digging vehicle, only for Steve to get distracted by Claire midway through. This causes a toxic gas pipe to burst – interestingly Steve tries to correct it through the controls – perhaps a reflection of his desires and fantasies for an “undo”. But in reality, he can’t undo his mistakes, and Claire is forced to grab him and leave the area.

This last mistake hits Steve particularly hard:

S: “It’s all my fault…” C: “Don’t say that. Listen to me – we’ll escape from here, together.” C: “Come on, we’ve got to shut off the gas. If we split up, we’ll have a better chance of stopping it.” S: *sighs* “…Okay.” C: “Steve. Don’t forget. We’ll get out of here. Together.” (20:45)

It’s not as if Steve is blind to his own faults – he knows that he’s been the one hindering their escape and takes it particularly hard. Claire has to reassure him multiple times that they’re working as a team to get out of here.

As a further blow to his ego, Steve is completely useless when the two exit the base and encounter Nosferatu, previous Alexander Ashford. Claire notices Nosferatu first, but Steve forces himself ahead of her soon after. He’s still clinging to the need to protect her.

However, Nosferatu easily knocks him off the platform, leaving him clinging to the side. Steve’s at his lowest here, and urges Claire to just leave him behind. If he can’t protect her, then what use is he?”

C: “Hold on, I’ll waste that monster and come back.” S: “Claire, forget about me. Run!” (23:50)

Claire’s resourcefulness and skill allow her to defeat Nosferatu and come back to Steve, still weakly hanging on. She pulls him back up, and Steve is left apologizing again for his rash behavior:

S: “I’m sorry. I failed you.” C: “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go.” *she leaves* S: “I swear I’ll protect you next time, Claire.” (25:15)

At this point, Steve’s all too aware of how his mistakes have left both of them in peril. It’s something that he deeply dislikes – as someone who wants to be dependable, he’s being a poor show of it. Claire’s been the one helping him out through most of this, both emotionally and physically. And so he makes himself a promise that next time, he’ll repay the favor.

It’s with this personal promise that the two climb aboard a snowmobile, hoping that they can make it to the Australia base. Unfortunately, this escape is a dead-end for them as well.

Sleep, weary knight

After Alexia awakens and destroys the snowmobile, Claire is rescued by Chris, who managed to find a way to Antarctica. She’s insistent that they must rescue Steve. She finds him cuffed to a chair in a long hallway, with an axe against his throat.

To Claire’s dismay, it seems she’s too late. Alexia has injected Steve with the t-Veronica virus. Steve’s last words before his transformation are a desperate plea for help. At this point, he’s actively asking for help from the one he loves, but fate has it that Claire is powerless. He begs Claire to save him, but she can only watch in despair as he morphs and chases after her.

In what seems to be a miracle of love, Steve manages to snap out of it just before he lands the killing blow. He instead slashes through Alexia’s entrapping vines, sparking her ire and a fatal blow to his chest. He dies in Claire’s arms, once again in human form, lamenting how he couldn’t protect her – how he couldn’t be her knight:

C: “Oh Steve…” S: *brings Claire’s hand to his cheek* “You’re… warm…” C: “Steve, you’ve got to hang in there, okay? My brother’s come to save us. We’re getting out of here!” S: “Your brother kept his promise. I’m sorry I cannot…” C: “What? What are you saying?” S: “I’m glad that I met you… I…. I love you… Claire…” C: “Steve? Steve?! Steve!” (34:15)

To players who dislike Steve, this may be a cheesy ending to a tedious character. And yet – we see Steve’s character arc complete fully in this final scene. No longer is he a volatile teenager, or a “cool” hero, or a self-perceived deadweight. He’s just Steve – utterly human Steve, who couldn’t keep his promise, and yet saved Claire in his own way. And it’s in these final, human, moments that he can confess his true feelings – only for everything – his façades, his love, everything – to all vanish.

The arm theory

As a somewhat lighter ending to this post, I’d like to discuss a little theory of mine.

People who have been following along with all the cutscenes might have noticed Steve’s right arm getting injured during the fight with Alfred. There’s no visual effect on his model, and Steve even claims, “I’m fine; it’s just a scratch” (11:30). And yet I’m convinced that it was quite a serious wound.

Note that he continues clinging to the platform in the Nosferatu battle with his left hand (24:40), not his right. Yet he keeps clutching his right arm in the cutscene after (25:44). And more importantly, Claire is the one driving the snowmobile during their escape attempt, after Steve had taken the wheel so many times prior (25:59). My theory is that the deterioration of his right arm is also why the arm is significantly skinnier upon his final transformation. If you look super closely at the bottom of the screen, you can actually see his right hand convulse as he mutates! Does this imply anything? Not really. But it would be cool to see this brought back somehow in a hypothetical remake, especially as Darkside Chronicles skipped these parts entirely. Kind of reminds me of another Resident Evil character who had arm injuries…

Anyway, if anyone made it this far, thank you! I hope this was a little insight into why I appreciate Steve so much as a character – and maybe in my wildest dreams, made you potentially enjoy him too.

#resident evil #resident evil: code veronica #recv #steve burnside #claire redfield #bits and baubles #temporary brainworm tag #aka my long meta post for steve that I hope did him justice

20 notes · View notes

cartoonscientist · 8 months

Text

so idk how to say this without sounding aggressive or ableist, but like… there are very, very few admirable historical figures who are known as being on the schizo spectrum. lately, I’ve seen a lot of people online basically saying “this person was most likely misdiagnosed as schizophrenic since they’re so intelligent and competent, they probably actually had [other, relatively less stigmatized form of neurodivergence]”. this particularly stands out in the discussion surrounding the artist Louis Wain, who is a very positive figure for many millennial and elder Gen Z schizos; while debunking the idea that his work the product of a deteriorating mind spiraling into insanity, people also frequently add that he was actually on the autism spectrum and was tragically misdiagnosed as schizophrenic.

this is… a tricky subject. it’s kind of like arguing over whether AFAB people who lived as a man pre-government identification were actually trans men or “just” sapphic women escaping misogyny. it’s really appealing to have your starcrossed wlw narrative, but at the same time it comes at the cost of reinterpreting an even less frequently represented identity’s narrative, one that is fairly strongly suggested to be correct.

it’s kind of hard to explain, but using someone’s talent or intelligence or level of articulation to “disprove” that they were schizophrenic… sort of implies that schizophrenics can’t have all those things. it fits a historical narrative that’s been running since the renaissance that people who are “mad” (generally schizos) don’t have “reason” (adult intelligence and depth of mind), so they don’t deserve human rights or autonomy. also, it usually isn’t intentional, but this rhetoric can give people the sense that you’re more okay with schizophrenic people being medically abused than other neurodivergent people.

so yeah, ultimately your “history headcanons” are up to you, but maybe let the schizos have their handful of people? idk

#schizophrenia #actually schizoaffective #schizo spectrum #schizoaffective #just schizo things

47 notes · View notes

gay-jesus-probably · 10 months

Note

So like, last night I stumbled upon your discussions of why a lot of TOTK’s whole… everything is messed up, and it had me thinking about it so much I had troubled sleeping afterwards. So uh, thanks for that lol (/lh). In all seriousness, your takes on how imperialist Hyrule is in this game, how much less like unique cultures the various towns feel like, Ganondorf being both completely flat and also seemingly not meant to be, and how weird it is that Zelda is back in power really put into words a lot of thoughts that had been nagging at me as I’ve been playing. Like, the amount to which the writing has suffered from BOTW is staggering when you actually lay out the problems. Out of curiosity, do you have any idea what the fuck happened? Like did the writing team change? The game had so much potential, as seen by the numerous fan theories/AUs etc. So what went wrong?

Honestly? I have no idea. I'm not usually that big on behind the scenes stuff anyways, and I'll be real here, I went into this game pretty much 100% blind - I didn't even watch any of the trailers, I knew NOTHING about TOTK except from a few details I absorbed from hearing other people talk about online (basically, I knew Ganondorf was going to show up as a talking corpse, Link would lose an arm, and the Master Sword would get rekt).

I rarely buy games as soon as they come out anyways tbh; I can only think of three games that I've actually gone out of my way to get as soon as possible after their release, and that was the 3DS remakes of Superstar Saga and Bowsers Inside Story (two of my favourite games ever, and Superstar Saga having literally been my first RPG), and I picked up the Mario 3D All Stars collection on launch day as a favour to my older sibling (who was stuck at work), and got one for myself in the process. The only reason I bought TOTK like a week after its release was because one of our dogs was literally days away from having a puppy, and so I knew that the next few weeks of my life would be entirely dedicated to keeping the other two dogs busy, assisting mom with the newborn puppy, and just generally being on call to provide literally anything mom needed as soon as she needed it. Which meant a lot of sitting around waiting to be required, and I'd need something to do that I could easily pause at a moments notice. So... new video game seemed a good way to fill the hang time.

And it was a good call, like I said, I've been having loads of fun with this game. There's a reason I've almost got 300 hours of gameplay, and it's not (just) because I haven't had anything better to do in between taking care of dog stuff (though that number is somewhat inflated due to me leaving it open and paused for hours at a time while busy with dog stuff). It's just that the story is a fucking mess.

As for what happened with the story... I have no idea. I've seen some people suggest that they might have been planning something a little more ambitious, and then technical limitations forced them to walk it back, so the story had to be hastily reworked to match. And I've heard that the abilities in TOTK were just ideas they had for BOTW that they couldn't fit in, which honestly I can see - the abilities are cool and all, but let's be real here, they aren't nearly as distinct as the BOTW runes. Magnesis, Cryonis, Stasis and Remote Bombs were unique powers with different uses in different areas; now the powerset is just Recall, Get Around Slightly Faster, Ultrahand, Ultrahand But In Your Inventory, and Ultrahand But Faster. But I don't know if that's actually the case.

But honestly, I really don't know why the writing is so awful. To be fair, some of it is definitely just the English translation team shitting the bed - like come on, they didn't need to have Sidon and Yona repeatedly exchange the exact same line about how he's scared she'll die like Mipha. They could have at least changed the fucking wording to make it sound more natural. And I know that other translation teams managed to inject some more nuance into the story - the French translation actually managed to call Rauru on his imperialist bullshit! For the throne room scene, they had Ganon refer to Rauru with 'vous', the formal form of 'you', but Rauru refers to Ganon with 'tu', the informal form of 'you'. 'Tu' is for use in casual settings or between friends, and if someone is using 'vous' for you, referring to them with 'tu' is a MASSIVE insult; it's very condescending, and implies that you have literally no respect for that person whatsoever, but they should continue treating you as a figure of great authority. To sort of translate that into an English equivalent, it'd be like if Ganon walked into that scene using formal language and referring to Rauru as a fellow King, and Rauru responded by treating Ganon like a small, dumb child. Hugely insulting. Also the vous/tu disparity has a History with French colonialism, so that adds some implications as to what Hyrule's really doing with their 'allies'. And in the scene where Ganon takes the secret stone, the French translation has him say Rauru tried to force him to submit, which is an outright accusation of imperialism (as opposed to the English saying Rauru wanted to control Ganon, which suggests the problem was Rauru thinking he could find a peaceful solution instead of just executing a foreign leader for thought crimes)

So the english translation definitely had the room to put some more nuance into things if the team had wanted to; honestly I kind of wish I knew Japanese so I could compare it to the original script and see if any of the problems I've been bitching about were part of the script from the start, or if the English translators were just particularly bad. But Nintendo is a very conservative company, and Japan is a very conservative country with a serious nationalism problem, so I kind of doubt it, especially since the game portrays Hyrule pretty much the exact same way that Japan is portrayed in propaganda justifying their own imperialism. That... does not suggest the English team went apeshit. That suggests that the awful shit was in the script from the start, and the English team was just totally on board with it.

As for the writing teams... I mean, to be fair it's been like seven years, of course the writing team isn't the exact same as BOTW. But honestly, the main issue is just that they've recycled a lot of old problems from the Zelda games, and somehow stripped them of what little nuance they had before. Like, Ganondorf trying to take over Hyrule because Evil has been an issue since Ocarina of Time (which this game was clearly heavily pulling from), but even though OoT never told us he had a deeper motive, the worldbuilding still showed exactly why he would have such an issue with Hyrule. We knew there had been a bloody civil war only about a decade before Ganon's takeover, we knew that the Gerudo were treated with disdain by Hyrule, and we saw that Hyrule's alliances with the Gorons and Zora were pretty flimsy, and neither race felt like Hyrule actually gave a damn about them. But most importantly of all, OoT gave us the Shadow Temple, a horrific prison meant to inflict unspeakable torture on its captives... all on orders from the Hylian royal family. Hyrule's hands were never clean. We weren't supposed to side with Ganon in OoT, but we were shown a long list of reasons for why he was so pissed off.

Someone else said that TOTK feels like a retelling of OoT that's just pro-Hyrule propaganda, and that's a pretty good summary. I don't know what the fuck Nintendo was thinking, but honestly it kind of seems like they're trying to stick to the formula of Zelda games at all costs, while also making the entire game just a huge 'gotcha' to all the fans that have spent the last 25 years seeing Ganondorf as a sympathetic character with depth and reasonable motivations. I find it ironic that they decided to include the Wind Waker boomerang and shield in the game, considering that the whole game feels like an attempt to get everyone to forget Wind Waker ever happened. That's still the most human we've ever gotten to see Ganondorf - he didn't have many lines in that game, but the ones he did have mattered. At the end of the day, WW Ganondorf wanted to have a better life for his people, and he knew Hyrule would never let that happen. But now apparently Ganon just wants to dropkick puppies into woodchippers, and he doesn't give the slightest hint of a fuck about trying to wipe out the Gerudo people entirely by attacking them with an endless sandstorm plus zombie apocalypse. His only character trait is Evil.

If I want to get really cynical for a minute here, I think it's basically just a cash grab. If your game prompts a moral debate, then it can offend people, which means they won't want to give you money for it. But if it's a simple black and white conflict with no nuance, the fans will love all the right characters in the right way, and everyone will love hyrule and want to see more of it! It's like the fucking MCU; they're not willing to tell a fresh story, or make any serious commentary. They just want something safe and formulaic that has been statistically proven to make money. Fucking cowards.

#tears of the kingdom spoilers #tears of the kingdom

42 notes · View notes