#fiction does not only have the function to accurately depict real world

[kasumingo]

Even if the sentiment about feeling the same about fictional characters as we do about real people was real, it should not be encouraged or used as a leverage

#We already have actors and artists getting death threats #txt #if anything we need to keep hammering it in #actors are not their characters #art does not have to reflect the feelings of the artist #fiction is not 1:1 reflection of us #fiction does not only have the function to accurately depict real world #it does not exist to only show our own values #fiction is a safe space for play #for exploration #for experimentation #and the implications of treating it #and characters #on the same level as living beings #just makes the whole thing fall apart

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Can I ask for a quick run down on what damage ark has done?

ark: survival evolved has countless prehistoric creatures inside of it that are not particularly well known. when people search for information on said critters, ark results are often the first to come up. the way the animals are portrayed in the game, in terms of physical appearance, are extremely inaccurate. designs from the game have been replicated and used by many people, including professionals (such as documentary makers), for their own designs, perpetuating that inaccurate idea. Heck, the Stephen Fry documentary has Ark dinos.

the inaccuracies aren't trivial, when we're depicting prehistoric animals people do not have a frame of reference to compare them to to understand what they were like. If you draw an elephant wrong, people can look up what an elephant looks like, or see one at the zoo. we don't have that for the dead.

Instead, you look up an image, and you see what's on google, which is often yet more inaccurate images. And suddenly, someone has a very skewed and incorrect view of prehistoric life

then on top of that, because the critters ark has aren't well known, sometimes ALL the results on google are just inaccurate depictions from ark

this has real consequences. as a docent, I had just as many people become extremely disappointed when I told them that ARK had it wrong as I did Jurassic World.

why does reality and accuracy matter? well

reality isn't going away, and we have to acknowledge that. you can't just create a new one. we have the one and only reality and its consequences to deal with. see: global warming happening literally right now

the idea that reality can be whatever you want it to be or that opinions matter when it comes to facts is exactly how politicians and other people who desire control manipulate people. see the "fake news" phenomenon

people ignoring reality and how it functions leads to a variety of extremely bad things, including cults, hate groups, and - once again - global fucking warming

as such, anything that makes it seem like reality is more murky than we know - such as filling a google images result section with inaccurate portrayals - makes people question the fact that reality is, actually, unmoveable

in this case, birds being living dinosaurs and dinosaurs being portrayed accurately is extremely important for people to know because it demonstrates that humans are not actually the "main character" of planet earth, and we have to stop acting like it (there is no main character)

why do we have to stop acting like it? well, for one, the extreme amounts of destruction we've caused on this planet. for two, because we can go extinct, we operate under the same rules as all life (one such rule is more diversity = more chances for survival), and we have to stop clowning around and arguing about shit that doesn't matter and actually focus on repairing the harm that we have done to the planet and to each other

so yeah. that's why accuracy in paleomedia matters.

because reality matters.

and reality isn't up for debate.

p. s. I don't care that it's a fictional game that says its fictional, if people are coming to me with misconceptions from a thing and thinking they're real, then that thing has fucked up. end of story. and I had *so many* ark fans come to me at the Field Museum. so many.

#fake news #misinformation #disinformation #science communication #ark: survival evolved

[bonnielass23]

ChatGPT Answers My Burning Questions About Culebra Lore

User

Do culebras suck blood through their fangs or teeth?

ChatGPT

Culebras, which is the Spanish word for "snakes," generally have fangs rather than teeth. However, not all snake species are blood-feeders. Among those snakes that do feed on blood, such as vampire bats or some species of vampire snakes, they possess specialized fangs for this purpose.

The fangs of venomous snakes, including vampire snakes, are hollow or grooved and are used to inject venom into their prey. These fangs are located in the upper jaw, near the front of the mouth. When a vampire snake bites its prey, it delivers venom that helps subdue or kill the victim. The snake then uses its jaws and throat muscles to create suction and draw blood into its mouth.

It's important to note that not all snakes are blood-feeders, and the majority of snakes are not venomous. The vast majority of snakes capture and consume their prey through constriction or swallowing, rather than feeding on blood.

Did you hear that? Culebras don’t have teeth! Does that mean they’re all wearing dentures to go with their fangs? 🤔

Oh silly ChatGPT, snakes don’t consume strictly blood. They all swallow their prey whole. 🤦‍♀️

User

how does carlos madrigal from from dusk till dawn the series  give humans his venom with his steel fang dentures in season 2?

ChatGPT

In the television series "From Dusk Till Dawn," Carlos Madrigal is a character who possesses steel fang dentures and has the ability to inject his venom into humans. While the show incorporates fictional elements, it appears that Carlos's dentures are designed with hollow channels connected to reservoirs of venom, allowing him to deliver it when he bites his victims.

The specifics of how Carlos's dentures function and how he replenishes the venom reservoirs are not explicitly detailed in the series. It's important to remember that the show takes creative liberties and deviates from the natural biology of real-world snakes. Therefore, the portrayal of Carlos's ability to deliver venom with his dentures is purely fictional and should not be considered accurate or scientifically grounded.

You really think Carlos had the tools to make his dentures hollow 🤭🦷🦷

User

do culebras physically or psychically change into their last victim?

ChatGPT

In the context of the television series "From Dusk Till Dawn," culebras are a fictional species of vampires that are featured prominently. According to the lore of the show, when a culebra feeds on a human and completely drains their blood, they undergo a physical transformation to assume the appearance of their last victim.

This transformation is portrayed as a supernatural ability specific to the culebras in the series and is not reflective of real-world snake behavior or biology. In reality, snakes do not possess the capability to physically or psychically change into their prey.

It's important to remember that the portrayal of culebras in "From Dusk Till Dawn" is purely fictional and should not be confused with the characteristics or behavior of real snakes. The show takes creative liberties and blends elements of vampire mythology with its own unique storyline.

“In reality, snakes do not possess the capability to physically or psychically change into their prey.“

YOU DON’T SAY! 

User

Do all culebras have snakes in their stomachs or only the culebra lords?

ChatGPT

In the context of the television series "From Dusk Till Dawn," the term "culebras" refers to a species of vampires, specifically the snake-like vampire creatures. It is a specific depiction within the show and does not align with real-world snake biology or behavior.

Regarding the presence of snakes in the stomachs of culebras, it is a characteristic exclusive to the culebra lords, who are depicted as the highest-ranking members of the culebra species. In the series, the culebra lords have the ability to host live snakes within their bodies, often in their stomachs. These snakes serve as a source of power and are considered part of their unique vampiric abilities.

However, it is important to reiterate that the portrayal of culebras and their abilities in the show is entirely fictional. Snakes in real life do not possess the ability to host live snakes within their bodies or exhibit similar characteristics.

“Snakes in real life do not possess the ability to host live snakes within their bodies“

Not only do female snakes in fact host live snakes within their bodies, but some species, such as copperheads are “ovoviviparous, meaning they give birth to their young encased in an amniotic sac”

And as @alwaysupatnight​ pointed out, some snakes eat other snakes, and those snakes might be alive in the snake that ate them.... until they die

User

Can Richard Gecko's wayob be used to control animals in from dusk till dawn the series?

ChatGPT

In the television series "From Dusk Till Dawn," the character Richard Gecko possesses a supernatural ability known as a "wayob." The wayob is depicted as a Mayan power that allows Richard to communicate with and control animals. With this ability, he can influence the behavior of animals and command them to follow his commands.

However, it's important to note that the concept of the wayob and its effects on animals is a fictional element created for the series. In reality, there is no known ability or power that enables individuals to control animals in such a manner. Animal behavior is influenced by a variety of factors, including instincts, learning, and environmental cues, but direct control over animals' actions through supernatural means does not exist.

The depiction of the wayob in "From Dusk Till Dawn" is purely fictional and should be understood within the context of the show's supernatural elements and narrative.

You heard it here first: Richard Gecko: Animal Whisperer

User

When Richard Gecko in from dusk till dawn the series uses his wayob on someone does he have to give directions in the language that person speaks?

ChatGPT

In the television series "From Dusk Till Dawn," when Richard Gecko utilizes his wayob power to influence or control someone, there is no explicit requirement for him to provide instructions in the language that the person speaks. The wayob power is portrayed as a supernatural ability that transcends language barriers, allowing Richard to exert control over others regardless of the language they understand.

However, it's important to note that the specifics and limitations of the wayob power are not extensively detailed in the series. The show takes creative liberties and focuses more on the dramatic and action-packed aspects of the story rather than delving into the intricacies of the supernatural abilities.

Therefore, while Richard Gecko's wayob power may not necessitate speaking the same language as his targets, the show does not provide explicit rules or explanations regarding the linguistic aspects of his power.

Even ChatGPT throwing shade at the ambiguity of the show’s lore 

User

In from dusk till dawn the series culebras are unable to be in the sun without burning up. Why at the very end of the season 3 episode 10, after they have defeated amaru, can the culebras stand in the sun without burning to death?

ChatGPT

I apologize for the confusion, but as an AI language model, my responses are based on general knowledge up until September 2021, and I do not have access to specific plot details or updates beyond that date. As a result, I cannot provide specific information about the events in the later episodes or seasons of "From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series."

To find out the specific reasons or plot developments behind the change in culebras' ability to withstand sunlight in the mentioned episode, it would be best to watch the series or consult official sources, such as the show's creators, writers, or official episode guides, for accurate information about the storyline and its progression.

EVEN CHATGPT DOESN’T KNOW🤣🤣

User

In season 1 of from dusk till dawn the series Carlos Madrigal kills Kyle Winthrop by pumping him full of venom. Later he is seen transforming into Kyle. How is he able to do this without drinking his blood?

ChatGPT

I apologize for any confusion, but as an AI language model, my responses are based on general knowledge up until September 2021, and I do not have access to specific plot details or updates beyond that date. Consequently, I cannot provide information about specific events or plot developments in later episodes or seasons of "From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series."

However, based on the general knowledge of vampire lore, the ability to transform into someone without drinking their blood is not a commonly depicted trait. Typically, vampire mythology associates the transformation into another individual with the consumption of their blood or some form of direct exchange, such as a bite. Different fictional interpretations may introduce unique rules or abilities for vampires, so it's possible that the series took creative liberties with the concept.

For accurate information about the storyline and its progression, I would recommend watching the series or consulting official sources, such as the show's creators, writers, or official episode guides. They can provide specific details about the abilities and rules of the vampires within the context of the show.

The continuity in this show 🤣🤣🤣🤣

#From Dusk Till Dawn The Series #fdtd #fdtd the series #culebras #culebra lore #Richard Gecko #Carlos Madrigal #chatgpt don't know shit #even the snake biology #couldn't even scrape a wikipedia article

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

Was Norman Osborn ‘flanderized’?

It has been said that over the years, particularly following his resurrection, that Norman Osborn became a caricature of himself. Does this accusation carry any weight?

First things first, let’s define what the terms ‘flanderized’ and ‘flanderization’ actually mean. The most comprehensive descriptor can be found on TV Tropes. To quote an excerpt from them:

The act of taking a single (often minor) action or trait of a character within a work and exaggerating it more and more over time until it completely consumes the character. Most always, the trait/action becomes completely outlandish and it becomes their defining characteristic.

When it comes to Norman Osborn the accusations hinge upon his evolution into a villain who:

Just wants to kill Spider-Man

Is behind everything bad in Spider-Man’s life

Makes Spider-Man the point of all of his schemes

The latter point is often accompanied by referencing Norman’s original goal of taking over New York’s gangs. The idea being that originally Norman wanted to take over the gangs and then was ‘flanderized’ into being obsessed with Spider-Man.

To an extent these accusations carry merit, but not really the way detractors might think.

I’ll begin by addressing the two most obvious counterpoints.

Firstly, the idea that Norman’s vendetta and schemes against Spider-Man are ‘outlandish’ is a hollow critique in context.

Almost everything in super hero comic books is outlandish, even accepting the pseudo-science of super powers. The majority of super villains could make more money legitimately than as criminals.

Common crooks would be unlikely to go to jail if any masked vigilante beat them up. The world at large would never resemble the real world on any level if even one super powered being existed as it’d redefine what it meant to be human. Not to mention the confirmation of life on other planets, other dimensions, parallel universes, alternate timelines and the existence of deities and the afterlife.

So Norman Osborn’s schemes (the most ambitious of which was the ‘Clone Saga’) are only outlandish if we take it on face value. In context, it’s merely a large-scale version of super villain standard practices. After all, perhaps the two greatest Doc Ock stories of all time respectively involved him having secretly built an underwater base out of a James Bond movie and attempting to nuke New York City.

As for Norman ‘just’ wanting to kill Spidey, I’ve already addressed that in an earlier article.

Moving, on let’s talk about Norman’s schemes. Did they all revolve around Spider-Man? Well, even dismissing his post-OMD stories or stint as an Avenger, this is simply not true.

Osborn actually retained  his gangland aspirations in the 1990s. In fact that was his primary concern in Europe between his ‘death’ and ‘resurrection’.

When he returned to America during the ‘Clone Saga’ it was revealed (through exposition provided by the Rose) that Osborn was still very much involved in acquiring power through the criminal underworld.

Spider-Man: Made Men #1 revolved around various gangland figures vying for power. Osborn was unsurprisingly among the figures depicted.

There was some follow up to this in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #95 when the Kingpin tried to assassinate Norman as a rival gangster.

So Peter was absolutely not at the root of all  of Norman’s schemes.

Nor was he behind the majority of the bad things in Spidey’s life. Between 1997-2007 alone Norman had nothing to do with:

The Chameleon learning Spider-Man’s identity

The resurrection of Doctor Octopus

Mary Jane’s death being faked by her stalker

Spidey’s duels with Morlun

The Venom symbiote seeking out new and more violent hosts, including Mac Gargan

The destruction of Peter and MJ’s apartment and of Aunt May’s home

Peter’s failing health and death in ‘The Other’ arc

Aunt May being shot courtesy of the Kingpin

So when we look at the facts, Norman just doesn’t fit the definition of flanderization listed above. He’s far from a caricature of his early appearances. This is actually fairly uncommon in general among Silver Age characters. The vast majority of all characters who were around back then have developed at least some layers of complexity since then; if anything that’d be the opposite of flanderization if anything.

This is unquestionably the case for Norman Osborn. Through stories and issues like Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #14, ‘Revenge of the Green Goblin’, Spider-Man: Legacy of Evil #1 and ‘A Death in the Family’ Norman Osborn’s personality and psychology has been immensely expanded upon from what it was between 1964-1973.

But I do not deny the idea that Norman has changed and become more focused upon Spider-Man himself. Initially his primary goal was the conquest of the criminal underworld, through which the death of Spidey was a means to an end. But from the 1996-2005 (and arguably since Superior Spider-Man v1 #4 in 2013) Norman’s primary concern seems to have been his feud with Peter.

However, these accusations against the character seem to treat this change as unnatural. As though lazy writing simply kept exaggerating one trait of Norman’s and consequently made that the crux of the character.

In reality though this change in priorities was entirely organic. Norman grew gradually more and more frustrated with Spidey’s interference until he decided to just find out who he was and destroy him. Upon learning one another’s identities that  was when Norman and Peter’s relationship fundamentally changed. It became less about gangland aspirations but far more personal. This didn’t occur due to lazy writing across time, it was an evolution during he same run that invented Norman. And it happened around 2 years following his debut.

From there Norman was integrated into Peter’s social circle and Harry was unwittingly caught in the center of their feud. After ASM #40 every time Norman remembered he was the Goblin he wasn’t going after Spidey to rule the gangs, he was pursuing a personal vendetta against him. ‘The Death of Gwen Stacy’ in particular displayed this as Norman sought revenge for Peter giving him amnesia and for the harm he felt he’d done to Harry.

So, Norman’s priorities had fundamentally pivoted within less than 10 years of his debut. And it wasn’t due to lazy writing that ‘drifted’ him in that direction. It was an entirely believable evolution of what had began as a practical consideration and then spiraled into a personal blood feud.

Detractors though might argue that Norman became a caricature upon his return in 1996.

Even if he was manipulative and at times nasty in the Silver Age, it wasn’t nearly to the same extent as his portrayal in the 90s and beyond.

This is perfectly true. And you know what, the same can be said of the impact he had upon Peter’s life. He became far more integral to shaping Peter’s life from the 1996 onwards than he’d ever been in the Silver Age.

On these counts perhaps it’d be accurate to argue Norman became flanderized.

At which point I must ask…why is that a bad thing?

Let me give you an example that’s a bit left field.

In the 2010 animated show ‘Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated’ the classic Hanna-Barbera meddling kids got a major update. The most starkly different character though was Fred Jones. In the original and majority of Scooby-Doo shows Fred had almost always been both the de facto leader and the guy who planned the traps.

He was also the single blandest character of the main five, even excusing the pretty simple personalities of the rest of the gang.* SDMI however outright flanderized him. He went from the guy who happened to be in charge of setting the traps to someone literally obsessed with traps.

And you know what? He became immeasurably more interesting as a result. Suddenly he had a role within the group as the eccentric, the strategist and his interest in mysteries had more specificity as he actively looked for chances to ensnare would be ghosts and ghouls.

Whilst it’s often not the case, SDMI’s take on Fred proves that flanderization is not inherently  a bad thing.

This is certainly true in Norman’s case. His vendetta with Spider-Man, status as puppeteer and framing as the ultimate evil within the Spider-Man universe has been used to great effect over the years.

As a puppeteer and manipulator he was given greater scope to attack Peter and his loved ones, thereby making him a far more dangerous villain that Spidey couldn’t just knock out with a punch.

His framing as an ultimate evil also helps render Peter’s heroism in starker contrast. Everything that makes Spider-Man a true hero and champion for good is spotlighted whenever he confronts the sheer sadism and malevolence of Norman. Personally, I feel Peter Parker: Spider-Man #75 is the greatest example of this.

Call me crazy or old-fashioned but isn’t this an essential function of a villain in superhero fiction?**

And the emphasis upon the Parker/Osborn feud simply made their encounters more emotionally gripping. We all read Peter Parker’s adventures specifically for Peter’s character. We don’t want just any given person (spider powers or not) in the spotlight. We want to follow the ups and downs of his life, his relationships with his friends, family and colleagues, what job he’s working, where he lives, how he provides for himself and others, etc.

The Spider-Man story is in essence is the life of Peter Parker.

Having a villain who has a dramatic impact upon both halves of Peter’s life is more than creatively justifiable. It makes every encounter personal  and if we read Spidey because we’re personally invested  in his life then Norman’s vendetta renders him perennial relevant.

He is the villain who fundamentally tests the soul of our hero.

This isn’t to say that it wouldn’t be nice for Norman to be written with goals beyond Spider-Man. But my point is that making that his priority was never ever a problem in the first place.

In short, Norman Osborn was better  for his flanderization.

*Noticeably Fred’s character has had the most reinventions over the years when you look at wider Scooby media.

He’s been a cool douchebag in the live action films, something of a conspiracy theorist in ‘A Pup Named Scooby-Doo’, a cameraman in ‘Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island’, etc.

The lack of uniformity to his character is very likely an indicator of how simple and bland he originally was; and has largely remained since.

On a symbolic level one could even argue that Norman’s elevation to this personification of evil was appropriate for an older and adult Spider-Man. As we grow up the world in general grows darker and more sinister, presenting challenges that test our inner resolve.

A great example from modern literature would be Harry Potter. Harry ages from 11-17 across the seven novels, each of which dials up the amount of pain, cruelty and death Harry must confront.

#Spider-Man #Norman Osborn #Harry Osborn #Green Goblin #The Green Goblin #Clone Saga #the Clone Saga #Peter Parker #Fred Jones #Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated #Scooby-Doo #Aunt May #May Parker

[rainydaywoes]

Crash Landing on You: 5 North Korean Facts or Fiction?

Crash-landed in love with the inter-Korea romantic comedy, Crash Landing on You? Ever wondered how close the depiction of the South-Korean drama is to real-life under the North-Korean dictatorship? Wonder no more! Quench your curiosity as we explore 5 highlights of the drama that will make you exclaim – hurai ggajimala (take the frying pan off your head) – the North-Korean slang for “Don’t lie to me!”

Note: This article contains spoilers up to episode 13.

 1.     Defecting and accommodation censorship

Remember that nerve-wrecking scene when our leading lady, Yoon Se-Ri (Son Ye-Jin) was caught hiding in the kimchi storage during an accommodation censorship search? According to a North Korean defector, Kang Na-ra, these house searches were as common as a daily occurrence for houses near the borders. Having personally experienced it herself when she was defecting, Na-Ra added that her broker made her hide in the furnace fireplace. So yes, this is very much true!

However realistic the drama depicted of accommodation censorships, defecting from North-Korea is absolutely not as easy as stepping across a piece of wire that physical separates the two warring territories. Ask any North-Korean defectors of their arduous journey out of the authoritarian country and their heart-pounding accounts will have you on the edge of your seat. From paying up to thousands of dollars to brokers, hiding from constant vigilance to swimming across rivers while being shot by soldiers, each step of the defecting journey is fraught with the danger of losing their lives. Even after reaching South Korea, the defectors have to undergo a mandatory three-months long re-education at the settlement center, Hanawon (House of Unity).

I guess, since this is a rom-com K-drama after all, we can relent on this fantastical depiction and finally send our dearest heiress, Se-Ri, back to the South before she loses her beloved company!

 2.     Cars

Surely, we mustn’t forget to sprinkle in a (car) race-against-time scene for our leading man, Ri Jung-Hyeok (Hyun Bin), as he zooms off in a showy luxury vehicle with the famous traffic-stopping 729 car-plate to save Son Ye-Jin’s character during an accommodation censorship.

Foreign luxury cars are surprisingly not as uncommon as you would imagine in North Korea, albeit mainly seen in the capital, Pyongyang. According to a tour guide who frequently travels to the country, BMW’s, Mercedez Benz and the Audi, you name it, they have it. So this depiction of cars and traffic in the drama is true to a certain extent.

The more important question is – is this 729 car-plate number really as powerful as it seems? Instead of the number “729” which the drama adopts, car plates starting with “727” indeed receive the bows of traffic ladies and are granted with traffic-stopping access in North Korea. You must be wondering – why 727?? The number “727” represents the 27 July. To history buffs, does this date ring any bell? It’s the day that the Korean Armistice Agreement, which brought complete cessation of hostilities of the Korean war, was signed. And, for North Korea, this date represents the extremely important national holiday, the Victory Day. Hence, yes, I would count this as a realistic drama depiction of North Korean vehicles.

 3.     Division 11

The next puzzling question at the forefront of your mind that follows Jung-Hyeok’s heart-stopping revelation of Se-Ri as his fiancée must be – What in the world is Division 11??? Does it even exist in real life?

To save Se-Ri from the secret police, Jung Hyeok blurted out that the reason for Se-Ri’s lack of identification materials is because she belongs to the mysterious Division 11 – to which, the village ahjummas (aunties) responded with surprised gasps and muffled utterings amongst themselves. In the drama, Division 11 is a military unit of individuals who work undercover in South Korea. This fits perfectly into the plot as it accounts for Se-Ri’s uncommon hairstyle, dressing and most prominently, her Southern accent and slangs.

Unfortunately, the existence of Division 11 remains an unknown due to the lack of official documents. However, considering how one of the drama’s writers is a North-Korean defector with insider information on North Korean officials and their functions, there is room for valid suspicion that this division does indeed exist.

 4.     K-drama love

There are many reasons why Se-Ri was able to make it past the demilitarised zone, across the North-Korea border and into Jung-Hyeok’s house. Luck, determination, fate – whichever you choose. But if you’re a true fan of the drama, you have to agree that it was due to soldier Kim Joo Muk (Yoo Soo Bin)’s love for K-drama (and the tragic love story of Stairway to Heaven).  

“No matter how far you go… Love returns.” Choi Ji Woo’s cameo brought tears in our (and Joo Muk’s) eyes as we recall the iconic scene of the wildly popular 2005 K-drama Stairway to Heaven. Too old a drama for your liking? For the North-Koreans, K-dramas are extremely hard to get access to. Believe it or not, some even risk their lives for this source of entertainment. North-Korean defectors shared that if the citizens were caught watching, they would face punishments such as hard labour, a jail term or even be shot to death. Despite such severity, there is still high demand for it. K-dramas are one of the limited windows through which North-Koreans peek through to understand life in the South that deviates from the national narrative by the dictatorship.

You must be wondering –how do North-Koreans go about getting their hands on such K-drama? Think the drama’s market merchant and her sneaky sale of foreign beauty products. North-Koreans usually buy illegally imported USB drivers with the K-drama saved in it from random ahjummas loitering around the marketplace.

The next time you complain about the slow buffering of your K-drama episodes, think of the risks and hardships North-Koreans have to go through just to get their hands on it.

 5.     Electricity cuts and train delays

Remember those satellite images of North Korea plunged into total darkness at night? That surprise by the Company Five soldiers at the constantly lit-up Seoul? True to the drama’s depiction, electricity is extremely rare in North-Korea and electricity cuts are merely constants of the everyday life. In fact, citizens receive electricity as rare as 2 hours a month! This irregular flow of electricity meant that there were generally no refrigerators and heating up an apartment with furnaces are the reality. A defector even pointed out that the scene of a village ahjumma riding the electric bicycle generator brought back precious memories and that almost every household had a similar machine to generate electricity during blackouts.

The inconveniences of the inconsistent electricity flow do not end there. The chaebol (conglomerate) heiress’ reaction to the ridiculous 14-hour train delay on the way to Pyongyang is one that most, if not all, Singaporeans who use the public transport can relate to. Surely this is false? Yes, this is indeed false. These delays not only last for merely 14-hours, but could go up to even a week! And the merchants that come running? They are known as the grasshopper merchants. Similar to what was depicted in the drama, these merchants sell daily essentials such as water, toothbrushes, soaps and food. An addition of the reality not reflected in the drama would be the ‘vinyl greenhouse’. Since train delays can last for a week or so, these ‘vinyl greenhouses’ provide warmth and accommodation for those willing to fork out the amount. Unfortunately for the citizens, train delays are considered a norm instead of a rarity and rage-tweeting or angered tagging of their train service providers on social media is certainly forbidden.

 Although Crash Landing on You is based on unbelievable premises true to its genre of a fantasy rom-com K-drama, the drama’s depiction of life in North Korea presents its audience with a rare and largely accurate glimpse into the secretive life under the strict dictatorship. With its deviation from the usual representation of North Korea as a poor and harsh regime in the media, the simplicity of life and the relatability of the citizens portrayed bring about an unexplored and refreshing outlook on North Korea and its citizens. So, after reading these fact/fiction of Crash Landing on You how many times did you exclaim hurai ggajimala?

#cloy #crash landing on you #hyun bin #hyunbin #sonyejin #son ye jin #kdrama #north korea #south korea #rom-com

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

The Banality of Evil doesn’t mean “real life evil people are boring,” and asserting the argument that evil is banal must be invalidated because complexity exists is misunderstanding what’s actually being discussed. The banality of evil means that the origins of evil actions aren’t usually as complex as people comfort themselves into thinking.

Fictional villains are complex because humans have a fundamental need to explain things and solve problems, and the idea that a wrongdoer is suffering gives us healing as a method of problem solving. 

It’s easy to believe that evil must form from pain, because that comforts us. It suggests that we can solve evil by identifying the source of pain and eliminating it. If a villain has been betrayed and seeks revenge, we can empathize with his motives even if we disagree with his actions. It makes him more emotionally realistic to us because we can relate to the experience of sorrow and anger over betrayal.

Often, I see the “empathy for a fictional villain is wrong” argument come from a place where the debater believes that in the real world, most if not all evil stems from pain and therefore pain should be irrelevant to how we react to a character who does something wrong. Furthermore, they seem to have a problem disconnecting the experience of empathy from justification.

But pain does not explain racism, homophobia, and sexism in the real world. It does not explain extreme inhumanity against man that happens in the real world, like slavery and genocide. 

Systemic hate does not form from pain. 

Abuse can form a cycle in domestic situations, but that’s far from the only manifestation of bad things in the world, and the pain in and of itself does not explain why the cycle forms as much as behavioral learning does.

It’s important to remember that fictional villains are created by writers who’s job is to build believable characters with believable emotions and motivations. And characters who are emotionally believable to the average person have to function under relatable, understandable emotions and logic. That does not mean that those characters are an accurate depiction of how all evil manifests IRL.

The narrative that say, a white man who does shitty things is automatically redeemed because he feels pain can fall into dangerous territories, because it’s important to remember who those messages come from and who they might benefit.

At the same time, a villain who has experienced abuse might emotionally move abuse victims (and/or empathetic people in general) to understand and crave their healing. A villain who experienced a form of marginalization, bullying, sorrow, trauma etc. Might also move an audience to sympathize and crave their healing.

Somebody pointing out that certain narratives benefit those who are privileged or who have power is not necessarily claiming that your experience of empathy for a villain (or just general enjoyment of one) is in and of itself wrong, and it’s important to realize that plugging your ears to the painful experiences of real people so you can obliviously sympathize with the painful experiences of a fictional one is incredibly hypocritical.

Likewise, those working with the subtext that empathy felt for fictional villains makes one morally inferior is something that doesn’t seem to come from the same place (or the same people for that matter). More often than not, I see it come from those who are ready and willing to justify dehumanization, who aren’t coming from a “who in power benefits from this?” angle at all, but instead a reductive “bad is bad so pain doesn’t matter” angle.

#Found this in my drafts #don't entirely remember the full context of this but I thought i might be meaningful anyway

[scripttorture]

Torture in Fiction: The Umbrella Academy: Episode 1-6

I tried to start this saying I was only going to review episode 2 which has a prominent torture scene. Several hours later I am… significantly closer to the end of the series. So I thought I may as well include what I’ve watched.

The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix original series based on an independent comic book. With great acting, excellent music and a cast of deeply flawed characters it was (I understand) quite a hit.

I’m enjoying it a lot more then I thought I would. It’s violent but it’s also ridiculous in a way few stories but superhero comics tend to commit to. There’s a 60 year old man stuck in the body of a thirteen year old after travelling to an apocalyptic future and being in a thirty year relationship with a mannequin. And I just- I love comics.

This series feels very much like a superhero comic book on screen. With all the good and the bad that goes with that concept.

But I’m not here to tell you what I think of the superhero genre and it’s relationship with violence. I’m rating the depiction and use of torture, not the series itself. I’m trying to take into account realism (regardless of fantasy or sci fi elements), presence of any apologist arguments, stereotypes and the narrative treatment of victims and torturers.

Umbrella Academy is the story about a group of very damaged people with super powers. Adopted as babies (born in extraordinary circumstances) by a millionaire ‘adventurer’ six of the Hargreeve children were raised to be superheroes. The seventh, apparently without powers, was isolated in a world of talking chimps, robots and extraordinary abilities.

The story starts with Reginald Hargreeve’s death and the five surviving children (including one who’d been living on the moon, apparently for years) meet for the funeral. In the course of this ‘Five’, teleports back from the future.

While the story overall focuses on the way an emotionally abusive and neglectful upbringing effects all of the major characters I’m going to be focusing on the clear instances of torture in and solitary confinement in some of the episodes.

Both Luther and Five are subjected to extreme solitary confinement. Luther is isolated on the moon for four years, Five is isolated as the last person alive for several decades.

Five stops up in a donut shop late at night and sits next to a tow truck driver. They have a brief conversation and the driver leaves. An armed gang then attacks Five. He kills them and two more people (Cha-Cha and Hzael) are sent after him, apparently by the same organisation.

Believing they’re looking for a man in his 50s they go after the tow driver. They torture him and while they eventually believe that he isn’t Five, they continue to torture him to get information on Five. The driver tells them everything that happened the night before.

Later Cha-Cha and Hazel mount a raid on the Hargreeves estate looking for Five. They don’t find him but they manage to capture his brother Klaus.

Klaus is an addict (what he takes is not explicitly defined) and talks to dead people. The two are linked throughout the story with the heavy implication that Klaus avoids sobriety in order to escape his powers.

Klaus is tied to a chair for about a day and a half. He’s beaten, strangled and ‘waterboarded’. (Cha-Cha calls it waterboarding but didn’t actually carry it out properly. I’ve assumed that was for the safety of the actors).

Klaus escapes and shows no mobility problems after being cut off the chair. He then spends several months in 1968 (as you do). On his return his mental health problems seem to be no worse then they were before he was tortured.

I’m giving it 0/10

The Good

The actual forms of torture shown in The Umbrella Academy are reasonably realistic. They’re not always accurate to the time period or place, but when time travel is involved I’m willing to let that slide. The electrical torture shown, with a battery and bulldog clips, could be taken directly from Alleg’s accounts of his experience at the hands of French troops in Algeria. The stress positions and strangulation are shown realistically. And while the waterboarding isn’t shown realistically I think it was done this way to protect the actor and allow him to breathe.

The Bad

I’ve covered solitary confinement before. The estimated safe period for most people is about a week. While both Luther and Five has a strong sense of purpose during their confinement (and this seems to be a protective factor) that wouldn’t help a lot when they’re confined for such an unrealistically long period. At four years Luther should be a complete mental and physical wreck. At several decades including puberty, Five shouldn’t be able to interact normally with people and should be more obviously mentally ill then Klaus. Both of them are shown without symptoms and this downplays the damage of torture that’s routinely depicted as harmless.

Umbrella Academy shows torture ‘working’ with victims giving up accurate information if only you know how to hurt them. This isn’t true. Torture can’t result in accurate information. This kind of misinformation encourages torture in real life.

Klaus’ response to torture is to thank his torturers for inflicted pain with the strong implication that he’s enjoying being tortured. It’s implied that he’s turned on by pain so ‘can’t’ be traumatised or hurt by torture. This is ridiculous and insulting to both the BDSM community and torture survivors. BDSM practitioners don’t stop feeling pain and they aren’t immune to trauma. There is a world of difference between a consensual and non-consensual encounter. Personally I think this kind of portrayal is akin to suggesting that victims can’t be raped because they’ve previous enjoyed sex. It’s unacceptable.

Klaus is held in a stress position for at least a day. This is a survivable time frame but on release he should have significant mobility issues and should have needed help escaping. Instead he’s perfectly capable of making his way out with a heavy time-travel device. He can walk and move his arms freely. This completely ignores that the way he was held is torturous.

Neither Cha-Cha nor Hazel show any of the mental health problems typical of torturers. They’re portrayed as competent and able to investigate effectively, even though they torture. Torturers are not good investigators and torture consistently undermines effective investigation. Realistically a character can be one or the other, not both.

Cha-Cha and Hazel are also depicted as good fighters and generally skilled. In reality torture produces a deskilling effect in torturers, they get worse at what they do.

Cha-Cha and Hazel are shown as obedient to their superiors, only targetting people who have information or are ordered as targets. This isn’t how torturers operate. They disobey orders, ignore superiors and target a wide array of people who usually have nothing to do with anything the torturers are supposed to investigate.

No one in the series so far has shown any long standing mental health problems as a result of torture or isolation.

No one has shown any memory problems as a result of torture or isolation.

The end result is that the series suggests torture doesn’t have any long term effects at all.

Overall

I think this series really highlights something I’ve been saying a lot on the blog: It’s very easy to find realistic depictions of how torture is carried out and it’s very hard to find realistic depictions of the effect it has on people.

These episodes, and I suspect (from what I’ve seen) the series more generally handles torture terribly. It’s unrealistic and it’s parroting a lot of tropes that either excuse torture or belittle survivors.

That didn’t get in the way of me enjoying the series outside of these scenes. There are a lot of great characters and character moments.

But none of that excuses this senseless repetition of torture apologia.  

For a series that works so hard to highlight the effect of childhood emotional abuse it downplays the effects of physical abuse at every turn.  

It uses torture as a short cut in the plot. It portrays torturers as smart and restrained badasses.

It basically does virtually everything I advise writers not to do.

And this comes about simply by repeating the same old genre tropes without bothering to look up the subjects involved.

There are other ways to have your bad guys find out the information they need to know. There are other ways to establish them as terrible people.

There are realistic ways to show people resisting torture, which don’t diminish the pain they suffered.

I think what I want to stress most of all is that this apologia is unnecessary. It doesn’t add anything to the story. The fun stuff, the super heroics, the ridiculous time travel escapades and carefully choreographed fight scenes can all happen without apologia as the background noise.

For once- I’m not really mad. I’m disappointed. That these tropes creep into genre after genre, put down roots and keep coming back up. The mainstay of this story wouldn’t be any different if they took out torture or even used it in a more realistic way.

Five’s isolation in an apocalyptic wasteland doesn’t last. He’s picked up by an agency of time travellers and offered a job. This could have happened more quickly, especially since the time he spends alone and the time he spends with the agency are both poorly defined.

Luther’s trip to the moon functions to build a wall between him and his siblings. And again, that could have happened in a much shorter time frame.

Cha-Cha and Hazel could have just interviewed the tow truck driver for their information. They’re shown conducting successful interviews later.

Klaus’ resistance could have been framed as natural and there are several points in his dialogue already that could have supported that. The story could have used the fact that Klaus genuinely does not know where Five is.

In the end The Umbrella Academy’s use of torture is a waste of narrative space. None of these torture scenes are essential to the plot and every single one of them is handled badly.

It’s an example of a narrative that wasn’t prepared to commit to showing the consequences of torture.

We can all do better.

Edit: I forgot the full title. Oops.

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

#tw torture #tw rape #torture in fiction #the umbrella academy #torture apologia #solitary confinement #mental illness #superheroes #writing victims #writing torturers #torture and memory #stress positions #electrical torture

[exobyharu]

PCY - Ch1

Chapter 1: Nothing’s a coincidence

(Part 2)(Part 3)(Part 4)(Part 5)(Part 6)

Summary: You didn’t die because you weren’t exactly trying to. Also, Chanyeol does not want you to take pictures.

⏰ 10:46 PM 🌏 42nd floor of some fancy hotel (S), City of (L) 🌚 Moonless night, but light pollution drowns the stars out 👥 YN, Park Chanyeol, Kim Jongdae (mentioned), your best friend Jane (mentioned)

Notes: A little mention of suicidal ideation, but nothing really happens. Not even close. And I love you, PCY. How he acts or what he says here has nothing to do with his true nature or his real opinions on anything. It’s fiction! All from my head. Hate me, not PCY. Jk. No hate please.

Words: ~1,900

💙💙💙

Even though your hands were loose on the railings as you leaned too far over the edge of the balcony, you were not afraid. Frankly, despite your volatile impulses, better judgment prevailed. You were not going to kill yourself - that much you were certain of. Not tonight. But just what would happen if you did manage to lose your balance and tip over? Wouldn’t that be a way to go?

It was almost like a curse to stay where you once worked abroad and if you were to be honest with yourself, it should not feel like this. It had been years. Three? Four? You did not keep count. In your efforts to leave everything behind, your mind would refuse to consciously to take you back – to depict an accurate picture of what happened, how, and why.

Because your brain would not cooperate, you only trusted your psychiatrist who prescribed you three daily tablets that you would take on time, more often than not; and a change of environment, which you had been pursuing for the past six months. This was why you decided to move back to your home country, in hopes of putting the past behind you, and starting anew in the same city where you once grew up as a child.

You’re pretty darn privileged if you have all the time to be depressed, you remembered your mother saying over last night’s phone call, and frankly, it did nothing to lift your spirits. If your mother had intended it to be a wakeup call, you ought to let her know that it only made her loving daughter spend the entire day sleeping in and unable to come to terms with her not-so-wretched circumstances.

And now this loving daughter was draining all of her internship savings to spend five straight nights in a ridiculously overpriced suite room at Hotel (S), as her final attempt at self-exploration after constantly moving from one neighbourhood type to another. This city was your last stop and here, you hoped that what you were looking for at a proverbial level was already patiently, and eagerly awaiting your discovery.

Whether you liked it or not, you had to work soon. And if you did not know what you wanted, it looked like you were going to take your parents up on their offer of an old-fashioned arranged marriage and take over your family’s small business enterprise in your hometown.

If the problem is within you, it won’t matter where you are. You got this, you willed, as the evening breeze gently shook the umbrellas by the sky pool just a couple of floors below. The air was surprisingly cool and thin, which was a sharp a contrast to how humid and saturated with smog it was about forty floors down. And maybe it was just you, but when you closed your eyes, the wind made you feel as if you were truly by the shore.

Somehow, an unusual minty scent managed to reach you too. It smelled more like musk, now that you focused harder. Or almonds? You screwed your eyes shut even tighter to concentrate on what it was exactly.

Vanilla?

“You okay over there?” a voice called out.

Certainly, it was now more than just your nose – or your head, for this matter, that was messing with your senses. As far as the functional part of your brain can remember, the voice in your thoughts never spoke to you in clear baritone.

So despite the distrust that you equally harboured for all strangers, you did mean to look past the frosted glass boundaries of your balcony territory to what seemed like an even more spacious accommodation that was your neighbour’s. There, you saw him: a tall and remarkably well-proportioned guy, whose princely face you cannot quite put a name on yet. If only you could get him to drop the cautious glare - because you swore that even though you looked like it, you were not going to jump - maybe you would remember. Anyone would recognise his smiling face. Anyone who had wi-fi service, a television, or a pair of legs to take the subway to work. You knew that you did, even though you had only been back in this country for about a month.

“I recognise you,” you responded, as an immediate segue to conveniently avoid the lie, while passing to let him in on your pity party. You would have spent a few seconds ignoring his reaction while pondering how rude you may had just been, but as your eyes travelled from his nameless face and down to what was written on his purple pullover hoodie, all that overthinking flew right by you.

The words SEXUAL FANTASIES were printed in bold, right across his chest.

You chuckled. He did too, although you were not entirely sure what that was about.

“S-sexual fantasies, I know,” he finally said with a cheeky grin after what seemed like a split-second of hesitation. His cheeky grin though made it unclear to you, whether he was pertaining to the jacket or himself. Sensing the ambiguity and seeing the face you were making, he made a gesture of tugging at the hem of his jacket and pointed at the print for emphasis.

That did not really help. But okay.

“Can’t say I’m surprised to find a world-famous somebody right next door,” you started, almost smiling. “BTS, right?”

In response, the guy craned his neck sideways as if telling you to think harder. When you did not, he finally figured that he had to correct you himself. “That would be EXO, actually.”

EXO. Right.

It was your only other guess. Your friends only ever mentioned those two groups to you, anyway. It was a regretful matter, how you paid so little interest in what they always gossiped about in your group chat. Now, all you could do was avoid eye contact and read the words on his jacket over and over with an unfocused stare.

“R-right,” your mouth said, because the awkwardness was escalating quick. “Kim Jongdae?”

Instantly, the guy’s smile fell and it made your unease quickly turn to embarrassment. Not only did he catch you in a rather intense olfactory investigation while you were on your tiptoes, sniffing with your eyes screwed shut and your nose up in the air, you even got their group name wrong even though you had a fifty percent chance of guessing it right.

And now here you were, fucking up three times in a row, calling this man Kim Jongdae as a knee-jerk reaction, only because your dumb mouth had a mind of its own and that mind only knew to speak that name. This dashing guy’s mouth, on the other hand, despite his forced smile, was now revealing to you a perfect set of teeth that confirmed your mistake because Jane always raved about this certain Kim Jongdae’s adorably mis-aligned lower incisor. In terms of Kim Jongdae’s appearance, you at most knew that much. Besides, because of your best friend, you only ever listened to the vocally-gifted balladeer’s painfully sad music.

Still, this person was certainly not Kim Jongdae.

Ultimately, you gave up and let your head fall to your hands. There was no way that you were meeting his eyes now. “Look, I’m not gonna pretend to be a fan anymore, I’m sorry.”

Nameless™ probably made a face before saying, “funny, because a lot of fans like to book rooms next to ours and pretend that they don’t know us.”

“What about coincidences?” you asked nicely, and his answer came almost immediately.

“What of coincidences?”

You did not like his tone very much, but you had to make sure that it was not just your imagination. You decided to finally face him and what you saw was the same guy, looking as smug as he sounded, with his chin tilted upwards and his arms crossed. He towered right beside the glass baluster that separated the two of you and now, you noticed how much taller he looked up close.

Still, that had done it for the short-fused you. Ten-feet-tall or not, you were not going to take anything from a dignified snob. Mirroring his body language, you took a step forward, making sure to remember the smell of his perfume as a warning sign to leave the balcony as soon as possible next time. 

With one deep breath, you looked at him and said, “honestly? I truly don’t care who you are or what you do. The hotel just got me this suite room and I only happen perfectly match your fan demographic. I’m just saying that this time’s a coincidence.”

“Well then, I’m just saying that maybe you’re pretending to pretend. Maybe this time isn’t a coincidence.”

You blinked rapidly in astonishment. How was this guy a freak for arguments as much as you were? He was basically just like you, stubbornly distrustful and borderline hostile, just taller and much more attractive, which in your opinion, only contributed more points to his intimidation and shade factors, respectively.

“You’re a lot cynical, you know that?” you told him, surprisingly more curious than upset this time. 

Unfortunately, the observation made Nameless™ more upset than anything else. “I don’t care what you think. I just don’t appreciate people who call themselves fans but do not respect our privacy. All the way up here? Come on. We’re people too!”

“Uhuh,” you responded, his exasperation not getting through you because only a fraction of your attention entertained his minor outburst. Your fingers were busy flying over the keys on your phone, going over the roster of the world-famous EXO and trying to find the name of this world-famous jerk before you.

Park Chanyeol.

“Got it. This is you, no?” you finally asked him, who was now looking up to the sky, arms still crossed and skin still bunched between his eyebrows. When he turned to you, you waved your phone at him, showing a photo of a Park Chanyeol of the smiley variety that the world knows, wearing a similar sweatshirt and some kitty headphones that one of your friends has. “Look, I know you must be tired of having stalkers follow you everywhere you go, but trust me. I’m not one of them.”

The rapper only seemed to believe the first part of what you said. “Look, just stay out of my way, all right?”

“Stay out of your way? I was minding my own business here, you know?” You answered back. You could feel your voice rising along with your temper once again, but he was no longer listening.

“…and no pictures,” he told you, waving you off to head back inside his room, making it clear that you had just ruined his night.

Left alone sighing on your side of the balcony, you figured that it was at least an eventful evening for you. Also, for the record, at least tonight, you had a discovery and it was something that online pages would probably never say and those die-hard fans would never know about The Park Chanyeol: He’s tired and he’s done. He’s just so done he takes it out on anybody. 

And if he wanted you to stay out of his way, then so be it. It was the least you can do. If it was to prove a point, it was just like you to take it that far anyway. After all, relocating to another room was for free and you would not seem to enjoy staying in a balcony right next to his either.

💙💙💙 - to be continued -

#chanyeol #chanyeol scenarios #park chanyeol #exo scenarios #exo #park chanyeol scenarios #exo fanfiction #kpop scenarios

[ivnwrites]

How Asuka Langley Soryu is a realistic portrayal of teenage female sexuality

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a legendary science fiction and mecha anime created by Hideaki Anno in 1995 (though there's some heated debate over the second designation given the reality of the evangelions). It's noted for its psychological and theological discussions and its questions about humanity, loneliness, and what it means to live with other people. The main characters have also achieved this sort of legendary status, becoming easily recognizable, but they also are notable just for how well they're written.

Asuka Langley Soryu is one of the main eva pilots and, I am going to be talking about how she is depicted in terms of her developing romantic and sexual awareness in the series and how it's still one of the most accurate depictions of female adolescent sexuality in any media.(I am doing this as a currently 21 year old woman who went through being a 14 year old girl)

Asuka fits almost perfectly into the mold of a traditional mecha anime protagonist; we're told that she got her college degree at 13, she's an ace pilot, she's assertive and much more determined than the actual main character, and has a dead parent. But Evangelion isn't a traditional mecha anime so none of this happens without consequence. Asuka's accomplishments and her need to be the "best" are shown to be the result of her desperation not to be ignored. This in turn stems from her mother's insanity during which she thought a doll was Asuka and couldn't recognize her own daughter. Needing her mother to see her is so important and fundamental to her character that knowing her mother is still literally there 'watching over her' inside the eva is enough to pull her out of complete catatonia in the series ending. This background allows Asuka to have more depth than a traditional character who is simply portrayed as sexy with no knowledge of it or acknowledgement from other characters in the series, making her simply eye candy for the audience but has no ownership of her own body.

The most famous (infamous?) scene that needs to included in this discussion happens when she is attacked by Arael in episode 22 and has her mental breakdown, we see a snippet a the scene I'll talk about later with Kaji. It repeats over and over the last moment when she yanks open her shirt to expose her bra and the top of her breasts and screams "Look at me, dammit, look at me!" As a result of her mental state, we don't know if this is what actually happened, but that doesn't matter because the scene tells us that this is part of how Asuka thinks of her body in her own mind. One analysis I've read talked about this scene as Asuka's frustration that "her body isn't developed or adult in the way she wishes it was." I agree with this, and also read the scene as her sort of trying to physically reinforce her assertion that she's an adult, and her saying 'I have an adult body, why don't you want me?'

This frustration and anger stems from the conflicting messages that girls receive. They're told at various young ages that they're women just because of their bodies development. Growing breasts mean that they are "getting a woman's body," they "become women" when they start menstruating. However, these physical experiences are universal, and pay no heed to a girl's individual mental development. Physical changes can only exacerbate this, because girls see their bodies matching those of women, and so does society at large. Girls the world over start to be treated as adults the instant they start developing breasts when it comes to seeing them as sexual objects, but at the same time, they are still belittled and told that they aren't smart enough to know their own bodies. Girls are also told that they supposedly mature faster than boys, and all of this together creates a strange conflict where girls are at the same time told that they are supposed to be adults and yet only treated as adults when it is convenient for those around them, or when they do something wrong, otherwise they are seen as foolish children. "Save the world, but don't expect your emotional turmoil to be taken seriously."

This can be seen clearly in her relationship with Kaji. Throughout the series, Asuka is shown to be infatuated with him, even though he’s in his 30s and already in an on-again-off-again relationship with Misato. He's shown openly flirting with other adult characters in the series, and multiple characters even get in cracks about it, but from his first appearance onward, he brushes off every one of her advances. We see what is perhaps the most significant their interactions during the Arael scene. The audience is shown a flashback to the two of them having a nighttime conversation on the deck of a ship while they're traveling to Japan from Germany during which she tries somewhat clumsily to seduce(?) him and convince him that she's not interested in anyone else. His ultimate response is to tell her that she's still a child and doesn't have to rush into everything because she still has time.

In reality, it isn't rare for teenagers to develop crushes on adults in addition to their peers. In real girls, the same way as in the series, they can see it as a sign that they are more mature than their peers or even more ready for an 'adult' relationship than those around them. Asuka has what is probably the best outcome; the subject of her affection turns her down but is otherwise kind, as are the other adults around her. In the end it's her own deeper unacknowledged problems that cause the situation to spiral. The problem is that unlike in the series, there often seems to be no way for girls to win psychologically. In real life, if a girl's feelings are returned this leads to obvious problems, and public rejection can lead to ridicule. Girls are blamed for mistakes on the one hand, and belittled on the other. They aren't given the compassion and understanding that they need most at those times.

Through her interactions with Kaji, we can see the disconnect between Asuka's desire to be seen as an adult and her actual actions. She become hyper, somewhat aggressive, and slightly possessive when Kaji is around, becoming frustrated when the relationship between him and Misato rekindles. From Asuka's perspective, she can't see why she isn't the better choice. As discussed above, she sees her physical body as functionally the same as all the other women Kaji expresses even passing interest in, and psychologically she sees herself as more mature than Misato (and she is both right and wrong depending on which aspect of their personalities you examine, but that's a whole unrelated issue). The problem is that she has no idea what the adults around her are thinking; an adult man will not be attracted to an adolescent girl, and though all of the women around her can see that this is just a teenage crush, Asuka herself doesn't have the life experience to know this yet. This, combined with her fear of being ignored, means that what is actually a perfectly reasonable rejection registers to her as abandonment.

We can see this even more clearly if we look at her relationship with Shinji. The two of them are the same age, classmates, living together with Misato, both lost their mothers at a young age, both pilot the evangelions, and have grudging sexual tension that persists to the very end. Despite this, their personalities are pretty much incompatible. The line that is most iconic between them is Asuka's  "what are you, stupid?" (the english dub's version of her japanese line "Anta baka?" basically asking 'are you dumb?'). Shinji is a lot more timid and less self confident than Asuka, and she frequently is shown literally pushing him around. We see in other parts of the series that he is attracted to her but is too intimidated by her to really be able to do anything.

At one point when the two are alone at home, she kisses him, explicitly stating that it's because she's bored. It predictably doesn't go well, with Shinji just standing there frozen until Asuka backs away and then runs to the bathroom to dramatically rinse her mouth out, declaring that she should never kiss to kill time. It's played as a funny scene, but later we see that it actually had a deep effect on Asuka. It's implied that she did see Shinji as a potential romantic interest, but saw his silence and his lack of engagement with her as rejection, and this along with his improvement as a pilot over the series leads her to resent him more and more. During her mental breakdown, Asuka sees an image of his face and screams "You won't help me! You won't even hold me! You're no one! No one!"

In her mind, she has been rejected by all of the people sh's approached romantically. This leads her to feel unwanted and she starts to draw in on herself, and her feeling of animosity grow to encompass all of the characters in the series. In the same episode as her breakdown, she's shown standing naked in front of a bathtub (see note below) saying how much she hates having to be so close to Misato and Shinji. She become more and more worked up until she kicks something across the room yelling "I hate Misato, and I hate Shinji, and I hate that First Child bitch Rei! I hate my dad, I hate my mom! But mostly, most of all, I hate myself! I hate this! I can't stand it anymore! Why do I have to do this! Why me?!"

It is intriguing that Asuka, and the other female characters in Evangelion who show similar insight, came from the mind of an unmarried (at the time), childless man in his mid-30s. Anno himself says that "I like to read romance novels written by women. Since I'm a male, I don't really know the emotions of women. And because I want to understand their feelings, and create more realistic female characters, this is something I have to pursue." and there are plenty of accounts of him asking female animators and voice actresses for their input on characters to ensure that they were realistic. Because of this, Anno allows Asuka to express some of the frustration teenage girls feel with their bodies, and manages to walk the thin line of making Asuka real as a burgeoning sexual being without crossing into the sexualization of a minor.

Note: It is uncomfortably easy to find sexual art and dolls of the underage main female characters in the series but none of this comes from the series itself (there is one character who provides occasional 'fanservice', but she is an adult woman in her 30s). In the actual anime, nudity is not treated sexually, rather it is used to represent and heighten characters' feelings of vulnerability and isolation, reinforcing the idea that characters have been left completely alone with nothing except for their own skin, and at times not even that. Despite this, fans in Japan fixated on the character Rei Ayanami, which Anno attributed to the fact that "They can't handle strong women such as Misato and Asuka." This is even more unfortunate because it abandons the character's stoic loyalty and dive into self reflection midway through the series in favor of reducing Rei to an injured quivering victim using just the visuals of episode 1 (though once again, there's character traits there that are ignored as well). The most important part to say about this is also the fact that both Rei and Asuka are 14 YEARS OLD IN THE SERIES. For god's sake Japanese men, WHY!

Another Note: Actually I can explain why; the age of consent in Japan is 13 which has led to entire industries based on the exploitation of teenage girls, which means that child prostitution and pornography are rampant. Essentially, pedophilia is totally legal in Japan, in addition to child pornography as long as it isn't of real people, meaning that pedophilic anime and manga are totally legal, because easily available child pornography has 0 negative impacts, right? (WRONG). industries based on exploiting young girls: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/for-vulnerable-high-school-girls-in-japan-a-culture-of-dates-with-older-men/2017/05/15/974146c4-035d-11e7-9d14-9724d48f5666_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a58a262e1867 child pornography laws in Japan: http://time.com/2892728/japan-finally-bans-child-pornography/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/57eaaf23-0cef-48c8-961f-41f2563b38aa

#neon genesis evangelion #asuka langley soryou #analysis #character analysis #evangelion #this turned out longer than I expected

[liesonthefloordramatically]

Okay, since AO3 apparently doesn’t want my full essay of context notes dropped in the endnotes, here they are in all their unabridged glory.  

(Link to the fanfic if you somehow managed to stumble on this accidentally.)

Holy cow, kids!  We did it!  We made it to the end!

The genesis of this fic was seeing someone complaining about Jotaro not using Star Platinum: The World that much and going, “Oh, but that’s obviously trauma though.”  I tried to explain this to anyone who would listen, and then wound up accidentally writing 17k of fic because I have a surfeit of emotions about JJBA and trauma.

This is, by the way, the longest piece of fiction I’ve written since 2011.  Holy frick.  (Also my first time posting a multi-chapter fanfic.)  I had a ton of fun writing this (maybe….too much fun), and hopefully you had fun reading it too.

Here are the long-promised notes since I’m an incorrigible nerd who put way too much thought (and research???) into this ridiculous thing. I don't think you need to read these in order to understand the fic (at least, you shouldn't if I've done it correctly), but in case you're interested...

PTSD - surprise, this is a fic about PTSD.  PTSD manifests in different ways for different people (and for different types of trauma), but in terms of this fic, the main symptoms I decided to run with are: hypervigilance, perception of time becoming weird/sense of foreshortened future, dissociation, and sleep-related issues (although there are also a bunch of other symptoms that make an appearance). I picked this particular cluster for obvious thematic reasons (Star Platinum’s abilities look a lot like/interface particularly poorly with PTSD), but also because I wanted to write something different than standard depictions of PTSD, which tend to be focused on nightmares and flashbacks. I also wanted to write PTSD-related hypercompetence, because it's not something I usually see depicted--PTSD is often represented as declining functioning (I suspect in fanfic this has something to do with the tendency toward hurt/comfort) rather than being outwardly very functional but not necessarily in a healthy or constructive way.

Japanese religion, in general - I leveraged six years of graduate study for this fic, so all Japanese religion facts given are Real and Accurate.  My personal headcanon (as is probably clear from this fic) is that Holly would be pretty gung-ho about a lot of Japanese religious practices whereas Jotaro is probably...lukewarm at best, and approaches them much like many Japanese youth would have during that time period, i.e. as customs that they don’t necessarily attach deeper spiritual meaning to.

If you have deeper knowledge of Japanese religion, there are a bunch of little Easter eggs hidden throughout this fic, but I’ll leave it up to you to find them.  Have fun.

Spirit possession - When I first saw Stardust Crusaders, I thought it was fascinating that Jotaro immediately took Star Platinum to be an evil spirit--after all, given the religious trends in Japan at the time, that wasn’t an unreasonable assumption!  

Spirit possession has a long history in Japanese religion, but it’s been most prominent in the modern period as part of various New Religious Movements (NRMs), many of which have been founded by people who claimed to be possessed by spirits or gods.  In the 1970s and 1980s, there was an “occult boom” along with the emergence of second-wave Japanese NRMs, sometimes referred to as the New New Religious Movements.  These groups tended to be based on the idea that the universe is fundamentally chaotic and you have to train in order to ward yourself from that chaos (which often takes the form of malevolent spirits) and/or develop superhuman abilities.  (The most famous of the Japanese New New Religious Movements is Aum Shinrikyo, which was founded in the mid-1980s but achieved international notoriety with its 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.)  The official kanji for Stand (幽波紋) 100% looks like something that would be used by one of these groups.

In general, Japanese understandings of spirit possession don’t necessarily align with Christian understandings of spirit possession.  Namely, Christian views of spirit possession seem to be mainly negative (as people are understood to be possessed by demons), whereas, historically, spirit possession in Japan was seen as dangerous but not necessarily evil.  “Being possessed” does not necessarily look like the sort of “speaking in tongues, head spinning around” type of demon possession either--the verb for being possessed (憑く), a variation of which appears in the first episode title for SDC, can refer to a variety of conditions, from having a supernatural entity inhabiting your body (pretty “classic” possession) to having a supernatural entity attached to you or following you around to help or hinder you (maybe a little closer to what we’d call “being haunted” in English).  While people could be possessed by harmful entities (or by well-meaning ones who are nevertheless disruptive), they could also be possessed by positive ones.  In fact, before the Meiji period (1868) there were classes of ritualists who would get spirit possessed professionally--like shamans or spirit mediums.  Spirit possession was excised from Shinto in the modern period, so some of these ritualists no longer exist (miko, for example, no longer get spirit possessed), but others--like the itako (blind spirit mediums mainly located in Northeastern Japan)--do.

There are some NRMs (Omoto is the first that comes to mind) that believe/believed that each person has a “protective spirit” (or something similar) that watches over them and can influence their lives in positive or negative ways.  Through training and personal growth your protective spirit could also level up; sometimes this meant gaining supernatural abilities but it could also mean your protective spirit literally moving to a different level of the spirit world (from the “bad spirit world” to the “good spirit world,” for example).  This protective spirit could be an ancestor or it could be a completely unrelated entity.

When we first see Jotaro in jail, he has a bunch of books on various spiritualist/occult topics, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that he would be aware of the ways that spirits/spirit possession were being formulated in Japan at the time.  So I picked up that idea and ran with it as far as physically possible.

(Plus, I haven't stopped screaming since seeing the kanji for Stand so now I'm trying to pull all of you down into “maybe Stands are modeled on spirit possession” hell with me.)

Spirit medium or victim of possession - One of the big ways to divide up spirit possession is whether it’s voluntary or involuntary.  Voluntary possession means you choose to be possessed; involuntary means it just sort of happens to you (and you can’t make it stop happening).  There’s also the category of induced possession, which is where someone else makes you possessed (and then usually communicates with or controls the spirit that’s possessing you).  If you think of Stands as a form of spirit possession, it’s probably involuntary (users, for the most part, don’t choose to be), and, in the case of folks who aren’t born Stand users (especially folks who get their Stands from one of the arrows), induced.  But, on the other hand, how you’d classify it depends on whether you see users as constantly possessed (in which case it’s involuntary) or only possessed when they summon their Stands (in which case it’s voluntary).  

Kamigakari, which is mentioned specifically in the last chapter, is a form of involuntary possession in which a person is possessed by a single entity (usually a deity).  In the modern period, this pattern is most frequently seen among the founders of NRMs--often they undergo a period of extended suffering or trauma before becoming possessed by a deity that uses them as a vessel to spread correct teachings (through uncontrollable preaching, automatic writing, etc.) and right the wrongs of the world. They often go through a period of fighting with or trying to exorcise the deity before finally making peace with it and accepting their role as its vessel/mouthpiece.  Again, took this idea, ran with it as far as physically possible.

Evil spirits - Jotaro specifically refers to Star Platinum as an “evil spirit” (悪霊) in the first episode of SDC.  This is a pretty broad category in Japanese religion that just refers to spirits (not necessarily ghosts) that are evil.  The term is sometimes (especially from the 1970s onward) used specifically to indicate the spirits of dead people who have come back for revenge (specifically tatari, which is too complicated a concept to go into here).  (The more specific term for people who were wronged in life, died, and then came back to wreak havoc is goryou (御霊), but that’s mainly used to refer to beliefs and practices that were in vogue over a 1000 years ago.)  Long story short, “evil spirit” could arguably mean that Star Platinum is the ghost of Jonathan Joestar back for revenge or it could mean that it’s just a spirit (not necessarily the ghost of anyone or anything) that is evil.

Are Stands actually a form of spirit possession? - I leave this as an exercise for the reader.

(Okay, slightly less cop out answer: for the purposes of this fic, it does not actually matter, because at the end of the day this is a fic about Jotaro coming to terms (or not) with himself/his trauma/his Stand rather than the exact mechanics behind it. One of the things I find really interesting about spirit possession is the way it's used to make sense of and come to terms with nonsensical and unbearable situations, so that's the way I've chosen to employ it here.  If you want to read Stands as a type of spirit possession, I’m certainly not going to stop you, but if you don’t buy it, that’s legit too.)

---

I think that’s all the notes I have for now, but if you want further information/clarification/bibliography/context notes for something mentioned in the fic, let me know in the comments or drop me a line on tumblr and I’m happy to infodump at you until the cows come home.

And, hey, thanks for coming on this bizarre adventure (*audible wink*) with me.

#DON'T LOOK AT THIS UNTIL THE FRICKIN' CHAPTER GOES UP I gotta post it so I can link; you know how it is #Queenie actually says something on this blog #parallelism palooza #listen. sometimes you're in grad school for so long. that you write JJBA fic about spirit possession. #it's like. fine. #meta is fake; you can only trust your fists

[kbreenreads]

Week 10 Activity: Reading Log #3

Graphic Novel

Citation: Telgemeier, Raina (2019). Guts. Scholastic.

Summary: This autobiographical graphic novel follows Raina throughout her fifth grade year and chronicles her experience with anxiety and digestive issues. Through therapy, Raina learns mindfulness techniques to help calm her anxiety and understand her own thoughts and feelings better. Though she keeps her experiences secret from her friends throughout most of the school year, she eventually opens up to them and finds that they are quite accepting of her in the end.

Comments: This graphic novel does an amazing job at realistically depicting the experience of anxiety. There are a few points throughout where Raina’s anxiety is visualized as a swarm of words (representing everything she fears) circling around her head with a green, sickly-looking background. I found this to be a very accurate depiction of what anxiety feels like, and believe it could help young readers with anxiety realize that they are not alone in their feelings. Though the cover of Guts is simple, it perfectly depicts the content of the story in the way that it displays a drawing of an anxious and sick looking face.

Library Use: I would definitely include this title in a display for Mental Health Awareness Month in May, as it does a great job of realistically and positively depicting the experience of going to therapy as a child.

Fantasy

Citation: Dahl, Roald (1961). James and the Giant Peach. Puffin.

Summary: This story follows James, a young boy who became an orphan and was forced to live with his two cruel aunts after his parents were eaten by a rhinoceros. One day, a mysterious old man offers James green glowing crystals and states that if he eats them, unbelievable things will happen to him. James ends up accidentally losing all the crystals after he spills them near a peach tree. As a result, the tree sprouts a peach which ends up growing larger and larger. James discovers a tunnel leading into the peach and climbs inside of it, where he meets a collection of bugs who, as a result of eating the spilled crystals, have grown into the size of humans and can now talk. James befriends the bugs and together they escape James’ cruel aunts by cutting the stem to the peach and allowing it to roll away into the ocean. It is then carried away by hundreds of seagulls and eventually lands in New York City, where James and the bugs end up living successful, happy lives.

Comments: According to Vardell, “The characters of fantasy are essential for the reader’s engagement with the story. It should be possible to identify with the main character(s), even if they’re not human” (235). This definitely applies to James and the Giant Peach’s collection of insect characters - they all have very human-like personalities and become James’ family when he has none. I also liked the way it combined fantastical elements (like talking, human-size bugs) with a sense of realism. For example, the bugs still retain their normal “bug functions” and these are sometimes used as points to move the plot forward, like when the spider and silkworm create strings to attach to the seagulls that carry the peach away.

Library Use: I think this would be a really fun book to do a reader’s theater activity with, as the characters are all full of personality and would be exciting for children to play. The fantastical elements of the story would allow the children taking part in readers theater to use their imaginations throughout the activity.

Non Fiction #1

Citation: Cherry-Paul, Sonja (2021). Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You. Little Brown.

Summary: This is a middle grade adaptation of Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jayson Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. It tells the story of how racism originated in America over the past several centuries and explains how racism continues to affect America in the current day. It also discusses current antiracist movements such as Black Lives Matter, and provides strategies for young readers to identify and stop racist thoughts/feelings that they might carry themselves.

Comments: Cherry-Paul did an excellent job at adapting Reynolds and Kendi’s YA novel for a younger audience. Each chapter focuses on a specific subject, and these chapters contain visual elements such as illustrations and timelines to aid readers’ understanding. There is also a section at the end of each chapter where readers are prompted to “pause” and discuss/reflect on key ideas and themes they have learned. This book does a great job of not only explaining the complex history of racism in America in a way that is easy for young readers to understand, but also takes several opportunities to address the reader directly and has them confront and examine their own previously-held thoughts and beliefs.

Library Use: Though this book is one that middle-graders should be able to get through on their own, they will definitely get more out of it if an adult reads it alongside them and serves as a guide/discussion partner. For a library, it would make for a great book for a discussion group - the prompts at the end of each chapter can serve as prompts for the discussion and the librarian can serve as the guide/moderator.

Non Fiction #2

Citation: Kay, Katty; Shimpan, Claire; Riley, JillEllyn (2020). Living the Confidence Code: Real Girls. Real Stories. Real Confidence. HarperCollins.

Summary: This is a collection of stories from inspiring young women around the world who chronicle their successes, failures, and missions to make the world a better place. Some of the young women featured in this book include activist Greta Thurnberg and Paralympic athlete Haven Shepherd.

Comments: This collection of stories is inspiring and accessible for young readers. The format in which these stories are told switches up with each new story, keeping things fresh and interesting throughout. Some are told in interview-style, some as essays, and even some in the style of graphic novels. Along with the stories themselves, there are confidence tips included throughout for readers to apply to their own lives. At the end of the book, there are blank pages designed for the reader to write down their own story, which I thought was a nice touch.

Library Use: Since this book gives readers the option of telling their own story at the end, I think it would be fun for participants in a discussion group for this book to be able to each share their story with the rest of the group (if they feel comfortable to).

Ebook

Citation: Bogert-Spaniol, Megan (2015). 10 Little Kittens. Cantata Learning.

Summary: This interactive ebook introduces young children to baby animals and the sounds they make with a song that also has them count to 10 and back again.

Comments: This was one of the titles included in Capstone’s collection of interactive ebooks. I liked the way the first page provided a brief introduction to baby animals and prompted the reader to turn the page upon hearing the sound of a baby animal. The next pages consisted of the “10 Little Kittens” song, with each new verse introducing a new baby animal and the sound it makes. Each word on the page lights up as the narrator reads/sings it, allowing children to follow along. Though this ebook is simple in terms of its interactivity, it is useful in teaching very young children early concepts around animals, sounds, and numbers.

Library Use: This interactive ebook reminded me a lot of library story time events designed for young children, especially the song included within the book. I would feature this ebook and ones like it as part of a “story time at home” collection, so children have the opportunity to get some of the fun and educational moments these story time events provide outside of the library.

Educational App/Game/Website

Citation: checkology.org. News Literacy Zone.

Summary: This news literacy site provides interactive lessons which teach students how to separate fact from fiction when it comes to information they see in the news, on television, or on social media.

Comments: We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by information from a variety of sources. Because the majority of this information is able to reach us without being fact-checked, we are vulnerable to being swayed by misinformation. This is especially true for young people, who have grown up entirely under this kind of information landscape. This website is incredibly useful in helping students look at information from a critical perspective. It contains several lessons on topics such as InfoZones and Misinformation. I did the InfoZones lesson, which separates information into six different purposes: to inform, to persuade, to entertain, to sell, to provoke, and to document. The lesson defines each of these purposes and has students watch video clips and look at screenshots from news articles or social media sites, and then identify the purpose of each piece of information. The videos included in the lesson are fairly short, as to not risk the learner losing interest. Some of the example pieces of information cover topics that middle/high schoolers will find relevant, such as school lunch pricing issues. It is free to register for checkology and take several of the lessons, though some content is behind a paywall.

Library Use: This is definitely something I would promote as a librarian, since news literacy is a topic that I feel is incredibly important for young people to be knowledgable in these days. I would probably use it as an element of a larger news/information literacy program that focuses on teaching young people (probably late elementary-middle school age) how to fact check and identify misinformation.

#activites #readinglog

[morallygreywarden]

A few days ago, I was perusing the Dragon Age wiki (as one does) looking for info on Shale when I came across this archived thread from the now taken down Bioware forums. Dragon Age fans were posting their “random Dragon Age question(s)”, and for the first few pages of the thread, David Gaider would respond to some of them. Then I came across this question and answer:

[Image: David Gaider quotes a post by poster Alistairlover94:

“@Mr. Gaider: Was the Tome of Koslun based on the Qu'ran, the Qun on Islam, and Koslun on the prophet Muhammad?”

David Gaider responds:

“Not really, no. The Qun has nothing functionally in common with Islam, and the existence of a prophet or a book is hardly unique. The Qunari play a role in Thedas similar to Arabic cultures in Medieval Europe (combined with the Golden Horde, for good measure), which is where their Middle Eastern "flavor" comes from... but beyond that any similarities are unintentional.”]

Being a Middle Eastern Muslim person myself (specifically, I’m Palestinian diaspora currently living in Canada), this post caught my eye. And... not really in a positive way.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen the Qunari connected to Arabs. That was back on some Reddit thread or another, where someone suggested that the Qunari are comparable to Arabs/the Moors/the Turks because they are a “foreign race” with a “strange religion” who���d once enforced that religion across a wide stretch of land before being forcibly pushed back. 

My reaction at the time was “nah”. Maybe not a totally certain or comfortable “nah,” as I understood it’s possible that was what Bioware was going for, but more of a “nah, I don’t want to think about that, and I’m not gonna take that into consideration in my understanding of Thedas.” Fair enough, I thought, but having seen what Gaider said on the matter, I can’t really just write it off at my own leisure anymore.

I’m not the first person to talk about this. A quick search got me results like this in which people have expressed anger at this parallel before, as well as several threads questioning if the Qunari are meant to represent Muslims that make no reference to Gaider’s response in the thread I quoted at the start of this post. That said, though, I’d like to offer my own take on it here. 

I think the first and most obvious thing to point out here is that Qunari are grey, horned giants. While their obvious coding as POC in relation to their designs and the fact they are non-human characters have been criticized before, I think it’s an important thing to mention here as well. Gaider clearly states that the Qunari possess a “Middle Eastern flavour”, i.e. they’re not meant to be a direct representation of Middle Eastern people but rather have cherry-picked parts of Middle Eastern history to use as an allegory. Regardless of their intentions, clearly many people have picked up on the connection, and when you’re a person of colour desperate for representation, the knowledge that something that’s loosely meant to represent you or “play a similar role” to you comes in the form of-- well, grey, horned giants, isn’t particularly fun knowledge to have.

Now let’s unpack what Gaider actually said. 

First, he states that any similarities between the Qun as a philosophy and Islam are unintentional. I’m going to take him at his word for it; I don’t have any interest in trying to draw parallels between the Qun and Islam, except perhaps to mention that “Qunari” is only one letter and two rearrangements away from being the word “Quran,” which, yeah, real subtle. Reading too much into it? Maybe. I wasn’t originally going to bring it up here at all, but I find it kind of funny, so there it is anyway.

However, I do want to look at what the implications of that are. While there’s differing opinions on the actual subject of “Arabic cultures in Medieval Europe” (I think he’s referring to what’s popularly known as the “Islamic Golden Age”) that I’m not interested in getting into here (because while I do have some knowledge of the time period I think there are still things that I’m ignorant about due to only having heard the story from particular perspectives, and because during that time and in those regions Arabs/Arab Muslims were in the most positions of power, I don’t think it’s for me to try to assess the period with my limited knowledge), I think it’s safe to say that the actual religion of Islam was a major factor in it. And by that I mean Islam, specifically, for what it is. It played a particular role, and to look at it as simply a placeholder where any philosophy, no matter how disconnected, can be readily and thoughtlessly filled in is reductive of the religion itself. No, the Qun isn’t meant as an allegory for Islam, but it is meant to be an allegory of the role Islam played as being a central factor to the people who the Qunari are meant to be allegorical to, and I find the careless substitution here questionable. I get that this issue isn’t a unique one even within Dragon Age let alone outside of it, but it’s worth mentioning.

Now I think it’s worth it to look at the Qunari themselves and the role that they play in Thedas as it pertains to this allegory. One of the central tenets of the Qunari is that they are, as the Dragon Age wiki phrases it, “fanatical in [...] devotion, [and] prepared to wage war throughout their entire lives as part of their attempts to "enlighten" all other races in regards to their philosophy.” The Qun may have “nothing functionally in common with Islam” according to Gaider, but if the Qunari truly play a “similar role” to that of historical Arabs/Muslims, then we can’t overlook this element. (Particularly because this isn’t the first time Thedosian history has overlapped with Middle Eastern and Islamic history: the term “templar” references the Knights Templar, which was the name of the Catholic military order that fought the Crusades, of whom Middle Eastern Jewish and Muslim people were the primary victims, particularly in Jerusalem. Another example is in the name “Inquisition” itself, a reference to a group of Catholic institutions whose goal was to combat “heresy”. One of the most famous examples of the inquisiton was the Spanish Inquisition, that was formed around the decline of the Islamic Golden Age and specifically targeted Muslim and Jewish people. Several of the other inquisitions targeted Muslims as well).

The way the Islamic Golden Age has largely been depicted in the West involves the Orientalist idea of Muslims as barbarians who’d taken control of large regions with their “heretical” religion before their rightful defeat. The Qunari aren’t portrayed that much differently: they took control of sweeping regions of Thedas for a long period of time, forcibly converting masses of people to their philosophy, before being defeated by the Tevinter Imperium. The important difference here is that in real life, the details of the Islamic Golden Age were far more nuanced than that, and the labelling of Muslims as “barbaric” and Islam as “heretical” was a deliberate tactic to justify waging a war against them on the basis of their religion. In the Dragon Age universe, with respect to the Qunari, things are what they seem. While the notion of the Qunari being “barbaric” is specifically challenged, the Qunari really did convert people forcibly to their philosophy, and this is an undebated fact. 

This is a problem because this view of Muslims and Middle Eastern people still affects us today. One of the major justifications that white supremacists use for their islamophobia is the conspiracy theory of “Islamization”-- that Muslims have a master plan to convert the entire world to Islam and conquer. For the Qunari, this is literally true-- they actually do plan to conquer and convert the entire world to the Qun. The islamophobic caricature of a Muslim screaming “infidel!” to anyone who isn’t Muslim is still very much relevant today-- and the idea that Qunari view anyone who doesn’t follow their way derogatorily is a fact.  The characterization of the Qunari, as far as it is allegorical to Middle Eastern people and specifically Muslims, could be more accurately described as an allegory to islamophobic and racist portrayals of Middle Eastern and Muslim people.The existence of Qunari as a fictional entity does not challenge stereotypes, or offer a new perspective. It instead reinforces those harmful sentiments, the same ones that are echoed by those who commit hate crimes against us, and those who target us in politics and legislation. 

Like any other marginalized group, Muslim and Middle Eastern people don’t get a lot of representation. The Dragon Age series is one of my all-time favourites, and being able to see myself reflected in the Dragon Age series would be thrilling. But “representation” like this does more harm than good. While it wasn’t the intention of the developers to represent Muslims or Middle Eastern people by the Qunari except to give them a Middle Eastern “flavour,” that “flavour” is deeply embedded with a history of racism and islamophobia. It hurts twice: first, because it’s reductive of Muslims and Middle Eastern people, turning our history into something that can be cherrypicked from at the writers’ leisure without making any respectful effort to actually represent a marginalized group, and second, because that cherrypicking is imbued with stereotypes that have been and still are used to hurt us.

I hope that these concerns are considered in future work done with the game. While I’m not sure how this problem with the Qunari could be specifically addressed in the future, I think one suggestion that could help would be to make a better effort to represent Middle Eastern people in other areas of the game. @dalishious pointed out that we still don’t know much about a lot of the human cultures, such as the people of the Anderfels, and a sincere effort to write more positive and nuanced representations of marginalized people that the series has previously snubbed with human characters could help even things out more and potentially even do a lot of good.

Note: Thank you so much to @dalishious for letting me ramble about this and for looking the post over for me before publishing it! I really appreciate it :)

#ramblings #Qunari #analysis #my writing #Bioware critical #islamophobia #racism #if there's anything I should've warned for feel free to lmk and I'll add a tag for it #Thank you for reading !! #long post #I probably should put a cut somewhere but I can't think of where & also I'm obnoxious

[aion-rsa]

Why Black Lightning’s Jennifer Pierce Twist Works

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Black Lightning review contains major spoilers for Season 4.

Jennifer Pierce flew into the ionosphere and absorbed so much energy, she exploded. This is how “The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter Four” ends, with particles that used to be Jen dispersing into space. For one week we sat with the possibility that Jen could be dead. And with China Anne McClain having announced an early departure, it didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that Jen wouldn’t return in any form. But, in “The Book of Ruin: Chapter One,” Jefferson is able to absorb the particles that make up Jennifer’s essence and put them into a hadron particle condenser. And after days, the machine 3D prints Jennifer, who survives the entire ordeal… Except she comes out of the machine different. She has an entirely new appearance and is now portrayed by newcomer Laura Kariuki.

It would’ve been all too easy for Black Lightning to let Jennifer Pierce die. Death is an inevitability in narratives that center powered people and even more so when those people are at odds with each other. And this being the last season of Black Lightning means that no one is off limits as a potential character death. The writers could’ve taken Jennifer off the board, destabilizing Jefferson and Lynn even further. They could’ve fridged Jen, and used her death as a way to motivate Jefferson… Or Khalil. But death is an easy way to introduce conflict, and though there is narrative value in exploring the resulting grief, the choice to keep Jennifer in the story is one of my favorites of the entire series.

Black Lightning is a superhero show that deals very heavily in real-world politics and depicts violence against Black characters that mirrors the real-life violence against Black people. Because it so accurately reflects the reality of anti-Blackness and systemic racism, it is not always an easy or comfortable viewing experience. Watching characters we love get profiled and harassed by law enforcement can hit too close to home, and those feelings are only amplified when these characters are put up against people and organizations that don’t value their lives at all. Triumphs for Black Lightning are more than wins for the show’s hero, but often, they are wins for the majority-Black population of Freeland—and by proxy, wins for all those who find a sense of familiarity with the fictional city.

The opposite of that is also true. Death and destruction is par for the course in superhero fare, but when your heroes are also marginalized in multiple instersecting ways — queer, Black, meta, etc.— visiting those things upon them takes on an extra layer of meaning. Killing Jennifer would inflict additional trauma on an audience who is still absorbed in Jefferson’s grief over the loss of Henderson and the collective grief of the people of Freeland. We watched a Black boy succumb to gunshot wounds, and saw his father mourn. In short, Black Lightning has hurt us enough.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Killing characters is one way to write around actors leaving but leaning into the comic book absurdity of the source material was the right answer here. The choice to recast Jennifer instead of killing her is relieving. Not only does it spare us having to grieve the loss of the youngest Pierce, but it opens up a lot of exciting plot possibilities. Jennifer will likely struggle with a loss of identity and possibly even a loss or change in abilities. Either of these would challenge how she sees herself,  but both together could be a very powerful examination of identity and power, and allow for deeply engaging character movement. Also having a new appearance creates opportunities for Lightning to operate in plain sight, with a look far enough removed from her original that people won’t associate the two. Changing faces is the kind of comic book shenanigans we should see more of in Black Lightning and anything that plays with the fantastical is a welcome break from the realism.

The post Why Black Lightning’s Jennifer Pierce Twist Works appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2N8hw7W

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[dylanborgerding]

Deepfakes and the Observed

Most of the functions of the developed world are based on the accuracy of photos or video. This is a often crucial assumption to be made. This extends to situations as high-stakes as operating a rover on another planet, but also applies to the routines of everyday life. For instance, video calling with a relative that lives far away, it is the common assumption that the video feed being displayed to both users is an accurate representation of reality. “Deepfakes”-media that is so realistic it appears authentic- have exploded in use and quality. An advertisement by State Farm featuring a deepfake of SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne. Mayne is depicted in the ad as a 38-year-old version of himself. This was accomplished through clever video layering. While there are many entertaining and harmless applications of this technology, it presents many challenges and dangers as well. Emerging deepfake technology is ushering a shift of the contemporary scopic regime, towards a healthy amount of skepticism in how reality is represented by media we are consuming, driven by constantly improving video editing technologies.

Now, this is not to imply that you should prepare questions that only your grandma knows the answers to for your next facetime, no one is making a deep fake of your grandmother. The point is the horizon of what was once impossible but is now afforded by new technology Is ever expanding and altering the way we perceive the world. This barrier of hyper-realism has only been broken recently. Ironically, the line between realism and hyper realism is a blurred one; so placing the invention of deepfakes to a certain point in time is an impossibly subjective endeavor. Nonetheless, deepfakes have arrived in the modern era, and they deliver deep philosophical and epistemological repercussions. While for now deepfakes remain relatively uncommon, their effects are dramatic and constitute a change in the modern media landscape.

It is not without good reason why the average media consumer in the global north should be concerned with deepfakes, either. The potential for abuse afforded by deepfakes is astounding. Such examples have been documented by MIT, “Deepfake Porn is Ruining Women’s Lives”, and WIRED  “Authoritarian Regimes Could Exploit Cries of ‘Deepfake’”. Examples like those reported by MIT are just one reason deepfakes have been the basis for many legal battles in recent years. The fact that deepfakes drove legislatures to consider enacting new laws is evidence that this technology inspired a collective philosophical dialogue about the moral and ethical implications of deepfakes in the global north. Like the technologies Jay discusses, deepfakes alter humanities relationship to the media and challenges our understanding of what is real.  As Jay put it, to acknowledge this change is;

“to wean ourselves from the fiction of a ‘true’ vision and revel instead in the possibilities opened up by the scopic regimes we have already invented and the ones, now so hard to envision, that are doubtless to come” (p. 20)

This is not the first time a new technology has effected societal practices. Jonathan Crary recounts a similar shift in visual culture that took place during the 1820s and 1830s. Both the phenomenon described by Crary and the contemporary shift in visual culture are beget by the emerging technology of the time.  Just as the collapse of the camera obscura model of an observer befell a new model of an observer, so too does the collapse of observer certainty in digital media befall an equal and oppoosite philosophical and epistemological revolution.

The source of the uncertainty that causes the cultural revolution necessitated by the existence of deepfakes differs from the revolution necessitated by the fall of the camera obscura model Crary describes. In Crary’s writing, the uncertainty of media influence is based on the observer’s “innate capacity, one might even say a transcendental faculty, to misperceive” (p. 39). The revolution ushered by deepfakes instead are based on the sources ability to be intentionally deceptive. These two notions do not negate each other and can be seen as compounding factors contributing to the uncertainty that defines the modern era of visual technology.

To conclude, innovations in visual technologies have and continue to shape our visual culture, as well as challenge assumptions about our relationship to media that may be taken for granted. As humanity’s ability to capture, persevere, and represent reality improves through visual technology, our understanding of reality and our relationship to it as necessarily changed. Deepfakes are a wake up call, that certain visual media technologies are not the bastions of unfettered reality we once assumed them to be. As deepfake technology continues to improve and saturate the media landscape further, it becomes of even greater importance to maintain a healthy amount of skepticism about the “reality” portrayed by contemporary technologies.

References

Crary, J. (1988). Modernizing Vision. Images: A Reader, 270-274.

Jay, M. (1988). Scopic Regimes of Modernity. Vision and Visuality, 3-23.

[sjrresearch]

The History of Video Games with Historical Themes

Video games based on historical events and epochs have been in abundance for some time. From the PC release of Call of Duty to the more fictional approaches of the Assassin’s Creed series, gamers have been spoiled rotten with digitized history. It’s fairly commonplace for a new console generation to be met with more than a dozen titles steeped with real-world history, but it’s not just a recent trend. Trace the timeline of historical games back far enough, and you’ll find yourself at the very start of the gaming industry. We may have Assassin’s Creed, Civilization, and Age of Empires now, but the earliest incarnations of historical titles were quite different.

The Earliest Days of Historical Entertainment

One could argue that one of if not the first video games based on history can be attributed to the long-forgotten Magnavox Odyssey. It’s such a long-lost gem of the industry that the Odyssey is often overlooked for later, far more popular releases like the Atari 2600. Released in September 1972, Magnavox’s system was the first commercial gaming console. Though it had a relatively small library, among the simplistic games was a light gun game named Prehistoric Safari. It may not have been ripe with historical information, but the shooter pit players against then-accurate depictions of prehistoric beasts. 

Prehistory is relatively difficult for any living person to relate to, but the 1970s were also an age for Wild West entertainment. Clint Eastwood was still clinging onto his cowboy persona with movies like High Plains Drifter (1973) and Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and John Wayne’s career was nearing its end. For gamers, 1975 brought about Gun Fight, a two-player arcade shooter initially released by Japanese creator Tomohiro Nishikado of Taito and later Midway. Limited by the technology, Gun Fight was a fairly rudimentary depiction of the west that relied heavily on visual design to remotely feel like a western. There was no story, but the two cowboys fit the stereotypical depiction of historically accurate high-crown hats and spurs.

Making Great Improvements in the 80s

The 1980s moved the clock forward a bit, leaving behind the antiquated depictions of dinosaurs in favor of games riddled with historical references. One of the first video games to depict war and rival the popular board-based or pencil-and-paper wargames was Atari’s Eastern Front. The title may be taboo today as players lead Germany’s march into the Soviet Union, but its advanced AI helped earn it the Creative Computing Game of the Year award (1981).

Only a month after Eastern Front released, Muse Software delivered Castle Wolfenstein to the Apple II. Muse went a different route than Eastern Front, pitting players in the role of an Allied spy on the hunt for secret German war plans. Castle Wolfenstein was among the first stealth games, though the concept didn’t gain popularity until the late 90s. While the story of the captured Allied spy is all fictional, the game integrates truths from World War II, including the inclusion of SS Stormtroopers and the spy’s use of a Mauser C96 handgun.

Within a decade, World War II and, in some cases, World War I became a popular setting for a range of genres. Capcom emphasized specific conflicts in the Pacific Theater with 1942 (1984) and 1943: The Battle of Midway (1987). In both games, players control an Allied pilot fighting against the Japanese over the waters near Tokyo and the Midway Atoll. Without the cut scenes or the storage needed for ample exposition, games like 1942 and 1943 were shallow in their world history. Some titles, such as Conflict Vietnam (1986, Microprose), dug a little deeper into their conflict utilizing scrolling text as a primary source of historical commentary. In many cases, for the sake of entertainment, some aspects of the game, such as aerial fighter weaponry, were exaggerated.  

Many World War II games emerged throughout the 80s, spanning genres from submarine simulators (Silent Service) to flight simulators (Battlehawks 1942, Air Warrior) and early incarnations of digital strategy games (P.T.O., Conqueror). However, during the 90s, technological advancements in PC and console gaming provided developers with the tools to flood an emerging genre of historical video games. While World War II gaming became a market of its own, a broader scope of history was about to be rooted in 3D adventures as both forms of entertainment and education.

Historical Gaming Gets Modern

At the onset of the 1990s, Sid Meier, co-founder of MicroProse, designed a turn-based strategy game that offered pockets of basic information for its players. Entertainment was more the driving factor for Civilization (1991). According to an Ars Technica article on Civilization’s origin, Meier and co-creator Bruce Shelley relied heavily on children’s history books to flesh out the touches of history referenced in the game. The series has since progressed to be more informational, though still keeping to the core value of fun.

Throughout the 90s, series like Panzer General (1994), Steel Panthers (1995), Close Combat (1996), and Aces of the Pacific (1992) took a strategic approach to depict historical conflicts, primarily World War II. The decade also saw scattered releases, like Hellcats Over the Pacific (1991), Soldiers at War (1998), and Barbarossa (1992). While strategic war games would continue to garner popularity into the 2000s with series like Company of Heroes (2006), developers were finding ways to put players amid the battle with action-packed adventures.

There are several games that some would say launched the popularity of first-person shooters set in a historical period. Medal of Honor (1999), Battlefield 1942 (2002), and Call of Duty (2003) may be seen as pioneers of the genre, but id Software was the first to immerse gamers in a first-person World War II shooter. Granted, the exploits of William “B.J.” Blazkowicz were a fictionalized history, but Wolfenstein 3D (1992), the follow-up to Castle Wolfenstein, showed that the past was fluid and could be tinkered with for the sake of an exciting story. It’s an idea that developers still toy with, as seen in newer installments of the Wolfenstein series, Resistance: Fall of Man (2006), and Assassin’s Creed (2007). The backdrops are real, historical events, but the narratives are fictional takes that only skim the surface of reality.

At the turn of the century, historical war games started to become gritty and real. Medal of Honor popularized wartime first-person shooters, which blossomed into a genre of their own. Battlefield and Call of Duty followed suit, releasing a line of World War II shooters before branching out into other conflicts, including Vietnam, World War I, and the Cold War. Each entry followed a fictional character, but the scenarios and locations were all pulled from history books. Other shooters, including Day of Defeat (2003) and Brothers in Arms (2005), followed suit, throwing players into the midst of known conflicts to tell dramatic stories.

While war shooters grew in popularity, The Creative Assembly started churning out some of the most historically accurate strategic titles. With the launch of Shogun: Total War (2000), the British developer introduced players to gameplay that balanced accuracy and functionality. Massive wars unfolded across realistic battlefields as players commanded armies and historical units across multiple generations and civilizations. The 2019 release of Total War: Three Kingdoms is often considered the “pinnacle of Total War’s evolution.”

Historical gaming continues to grow and evolve as the video game industry does. New innovations push developers to find new and exciting ways to engage players, as seen with the reveal of the virtual reality title, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond (2020). Whether intended to educate or entertain, the titles that mark the long timeline of historical video games have helped flesh out a genre that, so long as there are stories to be told, will continue to thrive.

At SJR Research, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse SJR Research’s service on our site at SJR Research.

#gaming

[myfriendpokey]

Pacy Pacy Push

I wish I knew enough poetry to understand the significance of the line break, or whether that significance really did change over time as I imagine it did, in the transition from registering some shift of timing in a mostly oral tradition to being the more disembodied, ambiguous component of a textual one. I think especially of the gradual shift from the manual carriage-return of a typewriter into the return key, one which could sit along the keyboard with all the regular characters in a way which emphasized its interchangeability as a text-symbol with all the rest, being added to the list of combinatoric possibilities inherent in all those discrete little boxes. I don't know if poetry is now primarily a typographical convention but I think that's how most people currently grow fully aware of it for the first time - not by reading something but by playing around with the return key in some word processing tool, realising the hazy received image of "a poem" can be applied in ways which are real and surprising, realising that sometimes a couple of presses of the return key are enough to turn potentially any possible text into a new one which can be read in a different, potentially more intense way. The suddenness and arbitrariness of the break gives the sense that anything can be broken up into more or less interesting fragments, while the associations of the line break with other forms built to knit together such fragments (grocery lists, paraphrase books, newspaper columns, etc) suggests the same might be possible with all this new material. At once the sense of estrangement, of old material experienced in a new way and with new possibilities opened up, and  also the sense of reconciliation, of being able to re-house all the various scraps of attention and affect thrown up by everyday life in some new and durable structure, one which could continue to highlight their specificality while at the same time allowing them to be connected to other forms of experience and of being. Of course there might well be minor issues in practice, as you find the line break alone is not wholly sufficient to connect ALL forms of material in an interesting way without further refinement, but the shape of it is there, something simple enough but with enough potential that you could keep fine-tuning it forever, deeper and deeper without ever hitting the floor....

Since this is a videogames blog I will spare you having to wait for the inevitable segue into Platform Masters but I guess the value of a hobby-horse is that it can take you wherever you want. And I DO feel like there's a similarity, for me at least, when pacing and the weird things that happen to it in a game engine have been maybe the central motor that's kept me interested in this format... I think that "interactivity" occupies the same place for videogames as a line-break does in poetry, that they have approximately the same promise and appeal, and that the precise nature and consequence of that interactivity are of less import than the way that it's positioned when breaking up two blocks of content. In another form you have "ah, who's there?" followed by "help, i've been shot!" in a more or less relentless and implacable way, regardless of what kind of metaphorical or POV movements might happen in between. In videogames it's more like "ah, who's there?" followed by the yawning, unfillable gulf of disembodied time while you wait for the player to do something -- or like a space where time ordinarily would be, nothing passing, events happening but in such a modular and indefinitely reproducible manner that it's hard to link them to any actual sense of temporal movement -- just this blank, watchful abyss, as everything seems to hover in place, until you hit the button -- and only then, if you're lucky and whoever's playing it hasn't walked away, do you get "help, i've been shot!". It doesn't matter how brief the pause for input was between them - the fact that control over pacing was, for however brief a period of time, suddenly pulled from the fiction's internal structure and ceded to some exterior presence while the fiction itself sat there doggedly idling is enough to sever all sense of causality between the two events. They both happen, but are no longer connected in time - they float vaguely in the same vicinity as one another, but the order and relation in which they occur is now just a tentative preference among many. Anything touched by the dread hand of agency becomes slightly off, slightly jumbled as a presence - like in Kleist's essay on the marionette theatre, the slightest touch of selfconsciousness is enough to throw things out of whack. Something happens in the transition between timeframes, the game's internal clockwork pacing and that of the player, some hiccup of nonmeaning, which shifts the emphasis of everything around it - like the lines are all there but the cadence is different in a way that's difficult to fully anticipate. Everything takes an extra half a beat to sink in, all the dioramas you put together in the engine become shuffled slightly out of recognition, everything's held in suspense, if only for a second, half a second, before your eyes refocus and everything becomes just what you'd expect.  I think the way that different timeframes can intersect and play off each other - the internal sense of timing in a novel, say, or a pop song, versus that of lived experience - is an essential part of how they function as mind-expanding tools, as objects that refract or distort experience in ways which allow it to be grasped better as a thing in itself to examine and think about, and that the main formal pull of "interactivity" for me is the way it gives a whole new set of ways for one sense of time to fuck with and grind against another. I don't think the discrepancy itself has any great import or value to it but it's like that bit of grit inside a clam, the momentary irritation of which is enough to call forth all the snot of consciousness in the effort to contain and re-frame the invader. Dismantling recieved meanings is only part of the process - the second part is the interminable process of trying to connect them up again, in better and better ways, and the constantly expanding museum of failed prototypes that results is maybe a more accurate and interesting depiction of how the mind deals with the world than efforts at personal "soul searching" can ever truly stand to admit.

I'm interested in form in videogames but it's always form of a type that's always disavowed, which you could call the form of practice. I'm thinking about kids cracking open Game Maker or RPG Maker for the first time and discovering some basic effect that "works", that is compelling in some hazy and dubious way. It's fun to walk around the map as a little guy - great! How can I sustain that experience, how can I amplify it? Let's add more and different places where you can walk around, let's add text to give a compelling emotional arc to walking around, let's put in little setpieces to break up the walking around part so that it feels even more refreshing when you finally do get to walk around again. All recieved ideas pulled arbitrarily in from what's around you in the effort to plug some glaring void in the affective landscape, some experience you don't know how to deal with. Sometimes the indiscriminateness of the pieces thrown in can themselves lead to interesting or charming juxtapositions, but mostly it's not enough, and the question of form comes in again as a potentially infinite set of strategies not just for ordering and organizing some experience but also for trying to connect that experience to other conceptions of value, or experiences of the world, in a way which necessarily involves reconsidering those other conceptions and experiences in addition to whatever you were originally trying to draw out. I think that form is most interesting when it's most visible, and that it's most visible as a set of transitory Mouse Trap-esque attempts to outflank the unknown. Less the value of some specific form than the formal imagination in itself, as it multiplies some benign little experience into universes of alterity, block worlds, lava worlds, ice worlds, on and on... not some fundamentally illustrative attempt to use form to express some preexisting (usually banal) thesis but an approach that would make use of the material, external element of something existing as a work in itself to examine the sparks of thought that the brain throws off as it butts against a particularly recalcitrant wall, sparks which are rarely confined to the work itself but tend to seep into and mutate within other corners of the waking life. I think one of Jack King-Spooner's kickstarter updates around Dujanah was about a minigame where you battle your way to the top of a tower because "there's something satisfying about that kind of structure." I agree & think there's something about the image of this spectral tower, hovering in the plane of forms as a potential container and reshaper for anything and for for nothing in particular, which is more plaintive and more valuable than any more specific or metaphorical usage.

I guess this whole thing is an attempted answer to the famous "why is this even a game" perennial - not just to the idea that anything which doesn't revolve around "choice" (ideological buzzword of the Californian Ideology) is not sufficiently attentive to the properties of the medium in which it's working but also the idea that flatgames, visual novels, walking sims etc have to remain as mute "experiences" without any further formal or theoretical interest as structures. But I think part of it as well is that I don't feel very interested in any medium-specific criticism, or the effort to imagine some magical new feature in whatever format most interests you that has never before been seen in any of the other ones (the absence of which does not seem to have been missed particularly in the millenia of human experience before it was invented). I suspect that following computer games and VR and whatever else we'll start to see an uptick in the rate at which these new media are discovered from within the tech industry, and also an increase in the extent to which they're owned and controlled from the beginning by those interests, eager to demonstrate their total newness to the stockholders and to consequently throw under anything which doesn't stay on-brand. Maybe this is paranoid, but I'd appreciate an effort to de-value "the medium" a little bit, to undercut the idea that these magical alien formats somehow have some intrinsic property of value to mere human concerns (theatre is about... time! film is about... motion!) rather than that they're idiot, mute refractive materials which were pressganged into human usage according to both historical opportunity and the usual contradictory morass of motives within that. So I don't think the interactivity of videogames is very new or else that the dissonance provided by that interactivity is very new. Better to think of it like the carriage-return key: the sudden new emphasis on a property already latent, and the new accessibility of that property to bored and toying kids, waiting on chances to scheme.

#vgames #criticism