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mewtonian-physics · 2 years

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I think it’s very funny how many fans haven’t played MGS the Saga. It’s not a bad thing! It gives Konami even more incentive to release remasters and remakes (if only they’d stop making so much money on mobile games they might do it…). Plus it means more people watch them as movies, which is ideal in some cases. If you ever want a solid (heh) long play, George Salonikh on YouTube does a great job.

I think probably the weirdest kind of fan is the newest wave of Revengence fan though, hot off the 2021-22 meme propagation of Armstrong and Sam. It’s not the point of origin for SamxRaiden, but I’ve been looking at the numbers and they’re rising like a tide. Also the newest people who take Armstrong’s message seriously because he’s a funny meme man. They intimidate me.

Maybe I’m just a fan from a bygone era though. Fandom has changed, as Old Snake said probably. I’m probably gonna do something with that quote.

What are your thoughts? If any? I know you said you haven’t played the games

i would play them if only i had a playstation or the tech ability to actually successfully emulate them. but i do not. still. if they rerelease mgs2 with updated graphics i will cry and scream and wail and just in general have a great but insane time about it. Perhaps a less great time if they don't change anything about the skull suit. I need it to be rendered in a way that isn't... That.

i don't usually watch other people play games it's... difficult for a couple reasons that i won't get into because it's hard to explain succinctly and you probably don't want to know anyway. but the game movies... beloveds. kefka productions has my whole heart

YOU'RE NOT WRONG AT ALL like... it's weird especially because it often feels like that's the only game that exists to them. obviously not everyone who's gotten into it recently is like that (catch me out here having gotten into it recently though revengeance wasn't my gateway to the series so who knows) but it seems to be the case for a lot of them and like... i do think this helps contribute to the massively skewed perception of raiden people seem to have lately. look i get he's super badass in revengeance but some people act like he's never been in any other games which is just doing him a disservice. revengeance doesn't showcase his entire character and i think this definitely helps lead to the bizarre viewpoint that he's literally just a trigger-happy sadomasochistic lunatic who only pretends to be 'normal'. i mean it's not as if that's even how revengeance presents him in full but without the other games i can see more easily how people have been coming to that conclusion. i like revengeance but i do wish people would shut up about it sometimes because mgs2 and mgs4 are right there and are equally excellent wells of information and characterization.

...but yeah also i think that a lot of people who got into it through the memes just aren't taking it seriously. again this is not always the case but the fact that these are genuinely serious and horrifying topics and the game is actually making a great deal of relevant sociopolitical commentary seems to go right over a lot of people's heads in favor of STANDING HERE I REALIZE YOU ARE JUST LIKE ME TRYING TO MAKE HISTORY et cetera et cetera et cetera. (which... is probably also another reason why raiden gets painted so unflatteringly because if you aren't acknowledging the deeply horrifying nature of the things he's fighting against of course he's just going to look like some ax-crazy homicidal maniac.) viewing it entirely through the lens of memes (the funny internet kind, of course) destroys the entire point of the game.

also it's weird seeing sam get painted as just a Haha Funny Guy when if you ask me his storyline is absolutely chilling. and it's extra weird seeing armstrong get painted as a Haha Funny Guy considering how we've dealt with the results of someone concerningly similar to him actually being president. like were people not paying attention during the entire 2016-2020 period or

to say nothing of the people who agree with him. those people are terrifying. are they just not thinking about the ramifications of his belief system or have they considered it and deemed it acceptable? either way

some of the memes are really funny i'll freely admit it and some of the game is really funny (look. 'memes. the dna of the soul' is never going to be anything but funny.) but also i think a lot of people are focusing on the wrong kind of meme and ignoring the actual message [shrugs] that's just what i've observed, anyway.

#ask

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daresplaining · 4 years

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[ID: Excerpt from Bendis’s Daredevil run. Matt Murdock and Milla Donovan are alone in Matt’s office at Nelson & Murdock, talking.]

Milla: “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. But I-- I just couldn’t think of any way to approach you other than this.”

Matt: “It’s just that you are mistaken about my being Daredevil. That story just isn’t--”

Milla: “I can’t stop thinking about what happened the other day. When you saved me from that truck-- it really... I mean, I know you are in situations like that... every day... but I am not. Nothing like that has ever-- This is hard to say out loud... The whole situation-- It-- it had an effect on me that I can’t describe. I can’t describe to you why I came down here. I have never done anything like this before and I certainly have never spoken to someone-- Someone I don’t know-- Like this before... In fact, even with you pretending that it wasn’t you as Daredevil who saved my life... this is as intimate a conversation I have had with a man since college. ...I just need to speak with you again. To-- Thank you for saving me. Hmm... This-- this is very embarrassing. I’m going to go.”

Matt: “What do you do, Milla?”

Milla: “What do I do?”

Matt: “For a living.”

Milla: “I work at the Hell’s Kitchen Housing Commission.”

Matt: “You find poor people a place to live...”

Milla: “And we do a lot of environmental testing. Lead and soil. You wouldn’t believe how some people have to live.”

Matt: “Milla... Do you see a logic in that even if, let’s say, I had been the one that [...] tossed you into that clothing store-- Do you see how I wouldn’t be able to tell you that? Do you see how admitting something like that would be very... dangerous for me and for you.”

Milla: “Do you eat food? [...] Would you like to... have dinner with me tonight?”

Matt: “Milla, I can’t take responsibility for you."

Milla: “I’m sorry?”

Matt: “This tabloid mess I’m in. With everyone thinking I’m Daredevil. It’s created a situation around me where no one is really, truly safe. Everyone who works in this office. Everyone in my life-- as long as there’s this feeling that I might be Daredevil... There are people-- vulgar people who could-- I just can’t take responsibility for you.”

Milla: “Hmm, well... Are we still talking hypothetically?”

Matt: “Oh, yes.”

Milla: “Well, hypothetically, can you imagine a situation where a girl, like myself, might have known all about this before sucking up the courage to walk in here and approach someone, like you, like this? The way I see it-- a girl doing all that is clearly taking responsibility for herself. I don’t live in fear. It is funny how you immediately took my responsibility on yourself... But I guess that’s a topic we could talk about over dinner.”

Matt: “Can I think about it?”

Milla: “Sure. But just for the record... I never mentioned anything about a clothing store.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #43 by Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, and Matt Hollingsworth

I hesitated about posting this whole scene because it’s long, particularly when transcribed (Bendis really loves dialogue), but I decided that cutting it up or condensing it would be doing it too much of a disservice. It’s a great scene, and there’s a lot going on, and I wanted to include all of it.

Part of what I like so much about Milla is how ordinary she is. This is true of many other Daredevil side characters as well, but always only to a certain degree. Karen Page is a successful and glamorous actress for a while. Heather Glenn is a wealthy heiress. Glori O’Breen is a revolutionary. Dakota North is a supermodel-turned-private eye. Rosalind Sharpe is... Rosalind Sharpe. Kirsten McDuffie comes close, but there is still something polished about her-- her effortless snark, her ability to kick butt when needed. There’s nothing wrong with this-- I love it, in fact (see my thoughts on Glori’s character development in particular), but it is the nature of many non-superhero characters in superhero media to still feel slightly larger than life, and so it’s nice to find one who is more down-to-earth.

Another major factor in this is the use of perspective. Matt is the protagonist, and thus we see (“see”) most of his co-stars from his point-of-view. We are in his head, experiencing their behavior. This is particularly true of his romantic interests-- yes, we see scenes of them doing things on their own, but for the most part, the lens of Matt’s perspective and knowledge is always present. But Milla is engaging because-- while we do spend a good amount of time in Matt’s head when she is around-- there are some very hefty scenes in which we are made clearly aware of Milla’s perspective too. Her introductory scene takes place before she has even met Matt (thus, we know her better than he does), and their first meeting is much more from her point-of-view that it is from his. We watch her experience that encounter, and we see the effect it has on her even though Matt does not. This is followed up by a very candid scene of Milla awkwardly discussing her interest in Daredevil with a friend, who laughingly teases her about it. Again, we are getting to know Milla on her own, separate from Matt. Bendis excels at crafting characters who feel real-- partly through, yes, his dialogue, which breaks many of the dialogue-writing conventions but does so in a way that, when it works, makes his characters sound extra genuine. We see Milla’s infatuation, her discomfort, and that makes it very easy to feel for her and identify with her, because even if we haven’t all had a crush, or tried to ask a superhero out on a date, we have all had embarrassing interactions with people, and this leads us to root for her.

All of this carries over into the pivotal above scene, in which Milla insinuates herself into Matt’s office and asks him if he eats food out on a date. I love this scene for a whole list of reasons.

1. It’s super awkward. I mean, it gets better, but a person walking up to someone they’ve never officially met and thanking them for saving their life while the other person repeatedly insists that they did no such thing is going to be awkward no matter what, and Bendis makes the excellent decision of leaning into that reality rather than trying to soften it. It says a lot about Milla’s personality that in spite of this awkwardness, she still goes through with this and says what she came to say, and I then love her extra-humanizing “Hmm... this is very embarrassing. I’m going to go” when Matt just wordlessly stands there. (I also love “What do you do?” “What do I do?” Bendis is a master of this style of conversational humor.) They are both super uncomfortable, which causes us to sympathize with them, places them on equal footing, and makes the rest of the scene-- when they manage to work through the awkwardness-- all the more satisfying.

2. It undercuts Matt’s secret identity angst. We all (I assume) love Kirsten McDuffie’s playful handwaving of Matt’s insistence that he isn’t Daredevil, and this scene is the spiritual predecessor to all of that. Milla is convinced that Matt is Daredevil-- so convinced that she has put herself in this uncomfortable position to talk to him about it-- and so she has no interest in even acknowledging his denials. She just ignores them. And it’s really funny. It has been said before (on this blog, and elsewhere) that Milla exists in this arc as the anti-Daily Globe. She figures out his secret identity and the results are positive. Matt has spent issues denying, arguing, scrambling to defend himself against prying journalists eager to lay his secrets bare, and then in strolls Milla with “I know you’re Daredevil, and I’m taking you out to dinner.” And then she gets that smooth calling of his bluff on her way out the door, which is just... fantastic.

3. “I don’t live in fear”. And of course, we get one of Milla’s biggest character-defining pieces of dialogue. In some ways, it’s fairly standard-- Milla has a backbone, she isn’t frightened by the idea of hanging out with a superhero, and “I don’t live in fear” is an obvious reference to Matt’s own “Man Without Fear” epithet. But it’s a great, empowering speech, and it feels important. It gives Milla control in this conversation, and more than that, it gives her control in the relationship. She has chosen to seek Matt out, she has chosen to ask him out, and she has done it with the knowledge that it might not be safe. As the story goes on, we get the sense that whatever understanding she might have thought she had wasn’t quite accurate-- that she has definitely gotten in over her head. But in this moment, in this scene, it’s a powerful statement of intent and a comment on her character-- as a civilian, as a blind woman, and as a Daredevil love interest who is stepping into a legacy that’s drenched in blood. And I appreciate the facial expressions that Maleev gives Matt. You can tell that he is completely smitten with her, and that this speech has floored him. It’s fun to see him in this position, and it builds a strong grounding for the rest of their relationship.

I could go on. The artistic choice of placing a flowy, sensual painting behind Milla versus a closed window behind Matt was clearly intentional. I love the implication in the last panel that Foggy and Jessica were listening through the door. “Do you eat food?” always makes me laugh. This is one of my favorite Milla scenes, and with this creative team there’s always more to dissect.

#Daredevil vol. 2 #Daredevil #Milla Donovan #Matt Murdock #Commentary #Milla Appreciation Day #Looong post. Dammit Bendis.

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hcpefulmarshmallow · 5 years

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Hello friends, this is just a thing that I wanted to mention real quick (you: “stop it Jenny, we know you don’t do real quick”) because it’s been playing on my mind for some time. Trigger warning for mental illness.

To begin, a (somewhat) brief preface. When I talk about what’s a ‘real’ diagnosis and what’s not, I’m referring to what exists in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-V); and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).

The most recent edition of the DSM-V was published in 2013 by the American Psychiatric Association, and the most recent edition of the ICD-11 in 2018. They are both common diagnostic tools for mental disorders, offering clear, standardised criteria. The DSM is more commonly used in America and is more universally known, while the ICD-11, despite being less common knowledge, actually has a wider reach professionally and is used more in Europe and other parts of the world. It also has a broader scope than the DSM, covering overall health instead of just mental disorders.

Please bear in mind that I have not read either resource in their entirety, this is just what I can work out from more general research of the two, compared to patterns in writing that I see all the time. And just know that I’m not calling anyone out or trying to police anyone’s creativity. Consider this an information dump, and inspiration to research what you write.

So, with all the boring stuff out of the way: what’s my damn point? Why did I take on the mammoth task of reducing a complicated and very nuanced issue to a single post? In fact, what is the issue at hand? 5 paragraphs in and I’ve still not addressed it, I’m a great essayist.

Well, it all started with the song “Sweet But Psycho” by Ava Max. And no, I don’t know it -- and neither does my sister who seems to think she does, because I hear the first four lines sung out loud more than I ever needed to: “Oh, she's sweet but a psycho / A little bit psycho / At night she's screamin' / I'm-ma-ma-ma out my mind”. And when you have that catchy but annoying tune in your head, the things you hate about it are inescapable.

At this point, you’re probably thinking this is another rant about the glorification (or even, gasp, the cutesification) of mental illness around us and, uh...sort of? Like I said, I’m not here to police anybody. And I don’t think almost anything is truly bad in isolation -- it’s the trend that scares me. There’s not much I, a lowly internet dweeb, can do about the mainstream, but I do think I can educate my fellow peers. And what I want to educate you on today is the use of words that don’t mean what we think they mean, as an example of why we need to mind the subject matter we handle.

So. ‘Psycho’. In terms of writing, most people use it to refer to their characters who are your batshit off-the-wall cutesy crazy types. Your Yanderes and Jeff The Killers of the fandom world. It’s usually short for two different terms: either Psychopath or Psychotic, and in neither case does this do anybody any favours. Let me explain.

The term ‘Psychopath’ is often used to describe someone who is cruel, violent, has no care for others, and is often bloodthirsty. These characters are usually presented in one of two ways: as someone who can blend into wider society until their true dark nature is triggered, at which point they become deadly and dangerous; or as someone who is simply unapproachable at all times. Psychopath also has a sister term it’s often treated as interchangeable with, of which I am sure you’re aware: Sociopath. A ‘Sociopath’ is someone who cannot or simply does not experience empathy, sympathy, all those wonderful emotions that make us caring and considerate towards others. As a result, a ‘Sociopath’ often winds up doing radically hurtful things to other people.

The trouble with both of these words is that, medically, they do not exist. Not how we think they do. We just made them up to be mean to each other. That’s right, you can’t be diagnosed as a Sociopath, or a Psychopath. Yeah, I was shocked too. I got so used to hearing people described like this, I thought they must be real.

And I’m not saying that these words are invalid, just because they’re not real diagnoses. That’s not how words work. The beauty of language is that we invented it, and we can keep on reinventing it. If people use the term ‘Psychopath’ in this way, it will inevitably come to mean this exact thing, no matter what psychology says. And that’s fine. The trouble is that they are often conflated with real mental illness. Used in the place of a genuine diagnosis so we can still have our crazy villain type without the constraints of real, attributable illness. Because you gotta keep ‘em guessing!!1! In the same way they become real words if we use them like they are, they become interchangeable with actual mental issues if we use them that way. The ‘symptoms’ of being a Psycho- or Sociopath are oftentimes just exaggerated forms of symptoms belonging to actual, diagnosed illnesses. And like I said, trends are worse than individual problems, but when we see a combination of symptoms in an illness, whether that illness is given a fake name or not, in exclusively characters who we’d never want to meet in real life, the real sufferers suffer. It puts a stigma in our minds whether we mean for it to or not; it closes us off to conversations, to understanding these people and how to help them.

The worst cases are when writers take the opportunity to justify their use of the word by ‘diagnosing’ the character themselves, which takes on a whole new level of Yikes. We’re in such an awkward place in terms of representation at the moment, and I know it’s hard to navigate. I have all the love for people who do so with pure intentions. If, for example, you have a straight character, it’s easy for that character to be themselves. But if you have a gay character, everything they do is Gay, and it’s a representation of the Gay Community, and you will be held to a higher standard because of that. That is the lens through which we look at media right now, and it sucks for everyone, and is so easily exploited, but it is what it is. In much the same way, if your character is the only character in your story with a certain illness and they’re also your Big Bad, or someone who would be genuinely terrifying to approach -- well, I don’t think I need to explain why that could be seen as a major disservice. And of course, if your character is the only one in a whole darn genre...yeah. This is why trends matter. And why the trend of mental health getting misrepresented is so troublesome.

But I digress: because remember, I did say there were two uses of the word Psycho, and the second is grounded in reality. The word ‘Psychotic’ is, medically speaking, a real thing. Again, used to mean someone who is deranged, possibly murderous - and like I said, if a word is used a certain way, it will come to mean a certain thing. But the term has a psychological basis. Psychotic describes someone experiencing Psychosis - a mental disorder in which the sufferer experiences a break from reality. The most classic case is a war veteran who thinks he is suddenly back on the battlefield.

But obviously, a sufferer of a serious and damaging phenomenon isn’t what we think of when we hear ‘Psycho’ or even ‘Psychotic’. I don’t want to lean too much into the impact on mental health as a whole; that the idea of being neurodivergent is subsequently glamourised and demonised at the same time; that people latch onto labels that have real, practical use, all for the sake of feeling special. I want to keep it basic now. I want to ask: do terms like these have a place in writing? Specifically, in RP, since that is the form with which I am most acquainted right now. Obviously I can only answer with my own opinion, since there’s no Holy Doctrine to tell us one way or another.

I’m not going to sit here and demonise everyone I think has mishandled subject matter. Believe me, I’ve not always been good at it -- I’m still not always good at it. And as someone actively playing a character whose mental issues are a major part of his characterisation, and who does things that make him unlikeable because of those mental illnesses, I know the pressure to get it right all the time. That unsteady balance between realism and demonisation, glorification and representation. The desire to put labels to traits, to have an understanding of what’s going on in such a complicated mind. It’s tricky. Everyone’s experiences are different. And I’m not saying we need to get rid of “crazy for the sake of crazy” characters, or view everything through the lens of “but who will this hurt??”; or get rid of these terms altogether. Like I said, societal meaning is still meaning. And I personally like to believe that most authors have good intentions, even those with poor execution. And I’m certainly not trying to shame anyone for falling for societal opinion. Everyone has about something at some point.

If there’s a point to this at all, it’s this: research. Learn. Adapt. Not even my information is perfect and correct. I’ve seen everything above done a million times in so many ways, good and bad. If you want to follow a trend in writing or in storytelling, do, but try to understand it first so you can execute it better. Give it a purpose, and a place. Seize your right to be creative, by all means, but also take the opportunity to learn something new. And in turn, use your art to not only express and entertain, but educate.

Tl;dr: The best premise in the word can still be executed poorly, but likewise, a poor premise can be executed well. No subject matter has to be wholly off limits, and not everything has to be a statement about something. But handling matters, so handle your work with respect. Do your research and understand what you’re saying before you say it. Make something you’re proud to stand by.

#( man that got long and waffly #but hopefully this will inspire someone to learn a new thing #and maybe even grow as a writer )#ɪ ᴡᴀs ᴊᴜsᴛ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪᴅᴅʟᴇ ᴏғ ᴀɴ ɪɴɴᴇʀ ᴍᴏɴᴏʟᴏɢᴜᴇ [mun]#ʜᴇʏ! [psa]#long post/

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