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aspec-manga-snom · 7 months

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Aspec Manga Rec: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

This post will contain mild spoilers for the plot and character dynamics of the Manga. Sorry about the long post, but its a lot.

Contains a romantic subplot not involving the main character. Some evidence for an Aspec Protagonist. Reference to Sexual themes but no explicit imagery or sexualization of characters.

Remember, panels are right to left.

Written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End follows the journey of Frieren, the elf mage of the hero's party after their victory over the demon king. She travels to speak to the now dead hero Himmel in Aureole, where all souls rest. Currently being released as an anime by Studio Madhouse, now seemed like an apt time to talk about it.

The manga explores themes of loss, grief, found family, coming to terms with your emotions and the importance of non-romantic relationships. Especially with our protagonist, Frieren, bound to live a life of near immortality from a human perspective.

Immortality and Relationships:

As we follow Frieren on her journey north we are told directly that she herself doesn't understand the nature of relationships. Her perception of the world is stuck in how she will long outlast the people that she cares for. Below this appearance is someone who truly care for others.

She learns to cherish the time she spends with others and we can see that with how she treats Fern, her apprentice. The adopted daughter of one of her former companions, who she begins her journey solely with.

We are shown in a flashback to the end of her previous journey that she would never consider an apprentice because their life would never amount to much of her own existence:

Frieren often conflicts with the ideas of relationships and it is the main conflict of her returning journey north. Fern very quickly becomes incredibly important to her, taking care of her needs and very swiftly looking after her apprentice's condition instead of continuing her own journey northward. Frieren defies her own beliefs and worldview because she has learned that the people that she does care about will eventually disappear; as it is the nature of her lifespan for them to be nothing but fleeting moments. She chooses to spend time with her companions because she wants to carry their story and memory for the rest of her life, something that she never felt with the hero's party.

How is this Aspec Representation?

Clearly more depictions of unfeeling characters as aspec isn't progressive in making aspec people seem more "human" but I think how Frieren subverts this trope demonstrates a great aspec character.

At this point, this representation is, and will probably continue to be a headcannon more than it will be actually confirmed, but it has some pretty good foundation.

Early on, Frieren directly tells us this about elves:

This is a pretty overt statement of her romantic and sexual orientation as early as Chapter 13 of the manga as the journey was just beginning. There are some questionable parts of this claim that "all elves" lack romantic and sexual attraction, but the author directly displays elves later on that hold or are implied to have romantic feelings for other characters. It reminds me of how some aspec people believe that everyone is like them, having an understanding without knowing fully that they have different experiences.

*Note, they kept the panel above in the anime.

So where does this leave Frieren as she is perceived by others?

No one questions this about her. It never comes into question if she had found the right person or if she was interested in the relationships herself, it is just accepted. In a later chapter exploring the romantic subplot between her two companions, she is asked for dating advice to which she responds:

The interaction is treated very naturally which mirrors realistic assumptions of these feelings and experience with them that might come with age.

The only claim to her holding romantic feelings towards another person was towards the hero Himmel. Which is suspect to say the least. Most of these assumptions are based on their close emotional bond, how much Frieren grieves his death and how Himmel treated her.

Throughout flashbacks, we can see that Himmel almost constantly was flirting with and then subsequently denied by Frieren along their journey. It isn't played as hurtful or annoying, just as a form of endearment that wasn't reciprocated; something that neither character seems to grieve in any fashion. They had a close emotional bond, but the manga doesn't display it as anything but platonic and I believe that to be true.

TLDR:

Frieren exhibits multiple aspec traits in how she perceives others and her relationships to the people in her life. While her traits may be seen as "inhuman" on the surface, she deeply cares for others without needing to be in a romantic or sexual relationship. The manga puts very little focus on romance and merely on the nature of relationships of all kinds and meanings.

This is my first large-scale post like this, so I would appreciate any feedback people are willing to give me. It is a very long post so I hope I didn't ramble too much

#aspec coded protagonist #manga rec #anime rec #slight spoilers #asexuality #aromantism #this is just me feeding my addiction to academic papers in a “healthy” way #oh my that is longer than I thought it would be #first post is an essay of course #frieren: beyond journey's end

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gunsatthaphan · 6 months

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I hate their asses sdkjhgf

#firstkhao #firstkhaotung #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #gmmtv #jkshdfjd theyre such losers 😭😭😭#also i miss my boys pls 😩#soaking up everything from their event with EM #also the way first tagged his post with //thaiforbllovers is taking me out djkhgfd please #i would go to one of his courses #homework include writing essays on why khaotung is cute and how to say *khaotung is cute* in thai #i would ace this class #also the na at the end #theyre baby

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bumblingest-bee · 2 months

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many of the things wrong with me can probably be traced back to the number of times i watched my fair lady as a child

#bee posts nonsense #it's the one musical i will never be able to think rationally about #you can write as many essays as you want about how objectively problematic the storyline is #but there's no hope for me. that show is literally grafted to my soul and i am simply a tree growing around it #like there are musicals that i loved more or loved first or that impacted the course of my life in a larger way #but something about my fair lady is special to me in a way that's difficult to put into words #also it's responsible for 90% of my poor taste in men. so you gotta give it credit for that #my fair lady #theatre

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onyx-was-here · 1 year

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[shaking, with tears pouring down my face] sonic the hedgehog is a game about friendship

#I HAVE NOT PLAYED FRONTIERS DO NOT PUT SPOILERS ON THIS POST #every character and how friendship affects them different #i am so nuts i am so insane #everyone talks about sonic but i could write you an essay about TAILS and his relationship with being around other people #he’s had sonic for as long as he can rememeber of COURSE he’d be less confident by himself when the only by himself he’s ever had was being #alone as a BABY. like oh ohhh my god oh my god #and he’s working on it but he’s always had people around him. and that is the reason he was able to build his own identity in the first plac #and #ugh #sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower

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blueskittlesart · 2 years

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hey do you think link is scared of zelda in breath of the wild? saw someone say that today, that he has mostly bad memories of her? i think. and that that’s why they don’t work together- im so confused lol had this person actually watched their interactions because he’s definitely not scared of her— but that’s just me, maybe i’m wrong

ABSOLUTELY NOT. i think link and zelda have an incredibly nuanced relationship ESPECIALLY post-calamity but under no circumstances do i think he is ever scared of her. pre-calamity there's this intense lack of communication from BOTH parties that i believe leads to them basically mutually deciding that the other does not like them. Zelda assumes link is stuck-up and hates her because he isn't able to talk to her, and link witnesses zelda at some of her lowest moments and is quite often the only person around for her to take her feelings out on, so he assumes the vitriol she spits at him is personal. obviously as they grow and spend more time together they begin to facilitate communication and realize that they actually don't dislike each other (zelda's diary is proof of this) but post-calamity link lacks most of that context. that being said i HIGHLY DOUBT link ever fears zelda. the very first introduction we (the players) get to breath of the wild is this very bright, soothing golden light, paired with zelda's voice urging us awake. what can be considered the tutorial portion of the game is all completed at the urging of zelda herself ("link! go to the location marked on your sheikah slate!") and if the player follows the opening of the game as intended they essentially allow her to guide them through an unfamiliar and obviously somewhat hostile environment, establishing that trust in her very early on. From then on she only really appears in memories and yes, she is often portrayed negatively AT FACE VALUE. but there is always always ALWAYS something very obviously lurking underneath the surface, and i honestly think it's a huge disservice to link's character to suggest that he wouldn't pick up on that or notice her (honestly pretty obvious) internal struggle despite his relative lack of context. she really doesn't hide it that well. there's a memory where she straight up tells you everything in simple terms. (tbh im getting the feeling that whoever said this missed some memories?? lol) Aside from that, it's just. unrealistic imo to suggest that link would do all this shit for a girl he is afraid of or who he believes hates him. From his perspective, hyrule is doing relatively alright without zelda. Breath of the wild is unique in that it is one of the few loz games that doesn't have obvious consequences to leaving zelda in limbo. In most other games, the world will begin to deteriorate as ganon rises to power and zelda becomes trapped. Breath of the wild introduces a world where ganon has essentially already won, but hyrule at large still continues on with some semblance of normalcy, and from amnesiac link's perspective, it's all he knows. He could leave zelda in the castle forever and he has a fair amount of evidence that hyrule will continue to be fine without her, but he DOESN'T. because he doesn't fear zelda, he cares about her. he can't leave her trapped there even if all he remembers is her yelling and crying and cursing the destiny she was born into, because he also remembers her waking him up from a hundred-year sleep and guiding him through eerily familiar ruins when he could hardly remember his own name. she is not and will never be a negative force in his life. even barring any subtext, the game itself makes it very clear in its writing and visuals that zelda is LIGHT.

#the only way i can see this take working is if you confuse zelda with the hero's destiny as a whole #and she can be representative of that in some scenarios of course. but it's important to remember that she is also affected by it.#she isn't the reason link is tied up in this fate. she is ALSO tied up in this fate and she is playing the part she is forced to play #and i think link understands this more than anyone. especially pre calamity.#in fact i think that was a lot of their relationship struggles pre calamity; working out the fact that the other wasn't at fault for it all #ugh anyway. who the HELL is saying that link is afraid of zelda. i'll kill them #asks #i came on here to post about finishing my first year of art school. but this ask made me so angry i had to write an essay about it lol #zelda analysis

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centaurianthropology · 2 years

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How Old is Nandor Really?

Hopping back into the meta game after bingeing my way through ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ (TV show), and while I’m sure there’s tons of interesting character analysis and lore analysis to dive into, the first thing that really drew me in was history. Specifically, I found myself wondering if I could use throwaway lines and art history to figure out exactly how old the vampires in WWDITS actually are. Nandor seemed the most possible to pinpoint dates for, as we have more information on his life and turning than any of the others, but it’s also muddled with inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies.

And those inaccuracies are what got me thinking. Nandor gives dates, but he also says that he ruled a country called Al Quolanudar, located in southern Iran, while also being a soldier in the Ottoman Empire. The problem here is that the Ottoman Empire never conquered Persia, and definitely never made it to southern Iran. Nandor is mixing up his own history (something all of the vampires seem to have a tendency to do). He thinks he remembers when he was alive, but timekeeping and dates vary from culture to culture, years get confused, and he is confusing Persia with Turkey, so … yeah, our boy is a very unreliable narrator when it comes to his own history. And that’s why I wanted to see if I couldn’t utilize more concrete information provided by the show, combine it with real-world history, and reconstruct a more accurate timeline for Al Quolanudar than that provided in the show.

Let’s start with dates that seem more certain than Nandor’s faulty memory. According to in-universe Google, we know that Al Quolanudar dissolved in 1401. We also know that Nandor did not know this. Now, it’s possible that he forgot this, just as much as he forgot that Persia and Anatolia are two very different places. But his shock seemed real enough that I’m inclined to believe he got turned and then subsequently exiled from his home country long enough before its dissolution that he never heard about it. My thought is that, after he was exiled, he fled to Anatolia and there became integrated enough into Ottoman vampire life that he conflated his human life and his vampire life. His army while he was human traveled far enough to destroy a village in Greece (Byzantium at the time), so he did probably have some contact with the Ottomans in his lifetime, and after a few centuries he mixed up his life in Persia and his unlife in Anatolia (combined with memories of invading the area with his army during his lifetime) and landed on his mixed-up history.

But how long before 1401 was Nandor exiled? For that, I think we need to turn to IRL Persian history. In the early 1200s Genghis Khan and the Mongols swept into Iran. Prior to their arrival Iran was one of the great cultural hearts of the Islamic world, featuring institutions of learning, architectural innovations, and large libraries. Many of these were destroyed with the Mongol invasion, and the Mongols seized control of the entire Persian region from 1256-1335, during a period referred to as the Ilkhanate. By the end of this period Persian culture was beginning to rebuild, utilizing its position as a crossroads of trade and incorporating art and architecture from Europe, India, Mesopotamia, and China. However, as the Ilkhanate stayed in power the Mongol empire fell apart. An important date for us is 1335, when the last of the Mongol rulers, Abu Said, died and the Ilkhanate dissolved into infighting, civil war, and petty dynasties.

I think this is where Nandor comes in. During a period in which numerous powers, previously kept in check by the Ilkhanate, sprung up to carve up Persia and take their own chunk of it back, it would make sense that a promising young warlord from Al Quolanudar might have been able to carve out a place for himself and to re-establish Al Quolanudar as an independent state. The Mongols and the local Arabian and Persian populations were in ongoing short and prolonged wars with one another from 1335-1381, and then the Turkish Mongol Timur invaded Iran and brutally conquered the area. He finally consolidated all of Persia back under singular reign by 1402.

And there’s a date that’s very close to one we already know. If Al Quolanudar dissolved in 1401 it was likely as part of the final consolidation of the Timur Empire finally reaching the southernmost reaches of Iran.

Given all this information, I think our best bet is that Nandor either established or helped establish an independent Al Quolanudar around 1335 CE (the population likely considered themselves a distinct state before this, but were governed by an imposed Mongol ruler). This would be good reason for him to rule the country he helped liberate right up until he was turned into a vampire. We don’t know how long his reign was, but it was long enough to lead his army pillaging and invading all the way up into Greece, which means they punched their way all the way through the Ottomans and into Byzantium. Even presuming they were tough enough to have managed that (and Nadja is proof that they were), that would have taken a healthy chunk of time. So let’s say he took over the country around the age of 20 and got turned around the age of 40 (running with Kayvan Novak’s age at the start of the series for that reference point). That puts his reign right around 20 years, which seems reasonable given his apparent accomplishments. That also means that he was turned into a vampire around 1350, which gives him half a century to make it to Anatolia, get lost in Ottoman culture, and miss the memo regarding Al Quolanudar being crushed in 1401 when the Timur Empire consolidated power in Persia.

This shaves his age down to more like 700, rather than 750+, but I think it makes the most sense, given the time periods involved, his references to the Ottoman Empire, and IRL Persian history. The dates provided from the 1200s just don’t mesh with the amount of Mongol control over Iran in the 1200s. There might be an argument made that Al Quolanudar was far enough south that Mongol control was shaky and couldn’t maintain control over a small kingdom there, so Al Quolanudar managed to remain independent, but that seems way less likely than it being formerly independent, then under Mongol control, then re-establishing itself as an independent power during the civil wars following the fall of the Ilkhanate.

I have no idea if anyone will enjoy this deep-dive into trying to square actual history with the absolutely mangled history of WWDITS, but for me it was a fun exercise, and I think I managed to make a fairly good go at figuring out a better timeline for Al Quolanudar than the one provided in the show. I have to admit, however, that I’m not an expert on Persian history. If you are I would love to hear any corrections or thoughts you might have on this theory. I would also love to hear your own theories on how Al Quolanuar might fit into IRL Persian history.

(Edited the next morning for non-midnight punctuation and a little more clarity of wording)

#What We Do in the Shadows #WWDITS meta #WWDITS #Nandor the Relentless #of course my first proper post in this fandom is a history essay I wrote at midnight #that's very on brand for me #I have no idea what the overlap between WWDITS and history nerds is #but I aim to find out

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corpsoir · 2 years

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decided to post these in the end. planets and moons i made in 2019 for a uni project

#posting this while im working on like five billion new drawings for my tarot cardsssss #sorry to every mobile user seeing this long ass post i guess #i took this course and i ended up making only space themed things for the entirety of it #i wrote my first big essay on this course as well and it sucks today but it taught me a lot #i wrote about the photo called earthrise that was taken on the apollo 8 mission #astronomy #space #planets #moons #digital art #corps art

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baddhistory · 11 months

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What Is This, Anyway?

A youtube channel! Well, specifically, it's the blog of a youtube channel that I'm creating for the specific purpose of putting some good, engaging, actually-fucking-cited history video essays out there.

See, it occurred to me a while ago that maybe, just maybe, all the American zoomers and millennials going around saying things like "I feel like my history education was severely lacking, because in 2020, all the sudden all these protests were referencing historical events that I'd never even heard of, and I really want to know more about history," might actually want to know more about history. And that maybe, just maybe, the reason people weren't engaging with history had less to do with the idea we've somehow been sold that it's Inherently Boring and more to do with lack of access.

The problem is, when I looked around the internet at accessible "history" on platforms like podcasts, TikTok, and Youtube (and, frankly, Tumblr), there were ~4 categories:

Well-researched, accurate history, but boring as fuck*

Pretty well-researched, but lacking citations, context, and/or using outdated, incorrect analysis**

One-off videos, which then become part of the discourse because they sound plausible - sometimes true, usually partly true, partly hyperbole or incorrect extrapolation.

Complete Lies, Now With A Grain Of Truth! - hot takes on history by people who are either conspiracy theorists, propagandists, lying grifters, or all three***

But I am a historian. I work with a lot of brilliant, entertaining, thoughtful, ethical, careful historians who have a lot of interesting things to say, and whose work, I think, would land incredibly well with people who are looking online for history they never got taught in school. It's just that our discipline doesn't value digital projects, for some reason, and that a lot of historians are too busy, and that a lot of us are not great with technology.

And but so anyway, I'm good at public speaking****, know my way around modern technology pretty well, care a lot about history and particularly the way we teach and learn it, and get really irritated both by historians who shrug and say "Well, guess people don't care about history anymore," instead of "How can we reach out to people who want to learn history," and by, well, the bad history I see masquerading as good history across the web.

Because people who want to learn deserve better!

[it has only just occurred to me that putting footnotes in the tags means they will not show up in reblogs. future footnotes will be behind a readmore cut.]

#meta post #faq #youtube link #*i'm not going to give an example here because these are my soon-to-be colleagues and i don't want to hurt their feelings #**crash course; you're wrong about #***these range from Hot Takes to Insane Diatribes to Plausible-sounding But Mostly-untrue essays #for example: They Started Killing Witches to Destroy Successful Female Breweries... or White People Were in South Africa First. etc.#****this was physically difficult to type. i forced myself to delete 'pretty good' and just say 'good'. i cast thee OUT impostor syndrome!

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sir-yeehaw-paws · 2 years

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So,

I’d like to talk about Zero. Major Zero. Just as I threatened said, I would. Zero absolutely fascinates me on so many levels.

My headcanon essays aren’t rants. I do want to make that clear. I write them because I adore these characters. The good, the bad, the confusing, and all the messes in between. If nothing else, these can all largely be summed up as: LOOK HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS. LOOK HOW MUCH FUN I’M HAVING.

Anyway.

Given that every MGS character gives me an ungodly amount of brain worms, that’s not hard. It’d be so easy to say he’s ‘a well done villain’ and leave it. But I’m the sort of person who sorta treats MGS characters like this, even the most mindlessly evil ones.

Because to me personally, I see them as complicated in motivation, in personality. They are not good people *save a genuine handful throughout the series*. I don’t believe they were written, nor intended to be, and I genuinely appreciate them in all their grey and black glory. I like that you aren’t hand-fed characters personalities, that they change and alter over time the way people would adapt to their situations, their worlds. And that at the end of the day, their war criminals in a war machine and (save for maybe Huey) willing to admit or at the very least somewhat understand.

(I’d also note that a story protagonist does not have to be a good, nor innocent person, but I already think that MGS handles that perfectly well in general) Regardless, my focus here is still on Major Zero. Who I think managed to end up being one of the most terrifying characters in the series. Which is saying a lot, considering the rooster of people we’re dealing with. Also pretty impressive considering the man is essentially comatose after 1976. Right up until Big Boss pulls his life support in 2014.

But that doesn’t negate the system he created, the projects he invented, and the intense sway he had over both people, and information for decades before that. It’s also worth considering that he was working with people like, Skull Face. Sure, Zero makes some claims about not knowing how off the rails or dangerous Skull Face was, but I’d also like to point out that the Vocal Chord Parasite wasn’t originally Skull Face’s creation.

It was Zero’s. Or, to be more specific, the will of his predecessors.

Essentially, Skull Face ended up taking an already pre-existing entity his superiors had created, and turned it into a beast beyond which they’d comprehended themselves. Skull Face also poisons Zero around this time with the fake pin badge. Something disguised as a gift, as Zero’s paranoia had him in deep hiding himself. (All messages via cut out, after all).

In the MGS Fandom Wiki, Cipher is defined as follows:

Cipher is responsible, in series for the following:

Les Enfants Terribles

Peace Walker

Ground Zeroes (I will note here that this was not Zero himself, but Skull Face after having gone rogue. Any incidence after that had nothing to do with Zero himself, I’ll note them only for the specifics of the organization at large)

The Phantom Pain (Vocal Chord Parasite, Attempted Annihilation/Genocide of Humans via biochemical warfare)

And by the 2000′s, Cipher is largely AI controlled alone.

Zero’s real specialty is in controlling information, I pointed it out here, but I want to go into much more detail in this post. Because while it might not seem like much, there’s a great deal of implication to information control, and it has a very real component in society today. There is no stretch to believe governments can control information, and while MGS is fictional, the things Zero does certainly have some real world basis.

He covers up the Ground Zero’s attack, and freely admits not everyone bought the story. (Sorry for using links here it’s too easy to hit image limit on this website). When speaking in the tapes to Skull Face, he’s fairly candid since, at this point, he trusts Skull Face as his XO and we get some general insight into how he views people and their own beliefs.

There’s a quiet arrogance to this statement I personally can’t fathom, but can imagine someone who truly believes himself in a position where he’s got people all figured out. Seems to believe that the world operates on a hive-mind that he can feed provided he and his network are in charge of that hive mind.

Now, I don’t feel like Cipher’s desire to unite the world is inherently a bad thing. A world where we are all equal, regardless of country, birth, status, race, sexuality. In this Zero is not so different from others. The MSF, Diamond Dogs, FoxHound. All of these entities surpass the ideology of nations being borders, and take people as people.

Where it gets out of hand and out of control (much as Big Boss himself would later in life with the concept of Outer Heaven) is that in Zero’s perfect world, someone is still in charge. People are told what to do, how to think, how to behave and how to operate. So people are united under a single banner, but that banner has people like Zero at the helm, and within that helm, are a bunch of suppressed people without free will.

THAT is where the issue arises. Interestingly enough, I don’t know if I can cast Zero in the light as some power-hungry dictator. What makes Zero so complicated (and by extension so scary) is his desire isn’t driven because he wants people bowing and kowtowing at his feet, but because he seems to honestly, genuinely believe he’s doing what the Boss wanted. Because, as it is with Big Boss, Zero seems to have held some mild obsession with her (and his own obsession with Big Boss), to have her dream carried out. Even though, much like Big Boss, Zero misunderstood it entirely.

It’s also telling that, for as immoral as Ocelot is, and as ruthless, there is one distinction he can make from Zero. Ocelot, fundamentally understands and even seems to value that people are people.

That machines breed nothing but trouble in the long run if they are going to think FOR you. (MGS4 turns a lot of this into a more muddled mess, but that’s a different post and more complicated than I can sum up here, but I still believe Ocelot was intentionally bringing down the system in MGS4, so, anyway).

For all Zero’s talk, his desires, he seems to fail to recognize that humans are going to be humans. Messy, complicated. Confusing. Does Zero over simply humans? Hard to say. But I don’t think he values them very much.

Like Ocelot, however, this is also something Skull Face understands as well.

Skull Face.

Something something “worst person you know made a good point’ meme here.

Because whether Zero likes it or not, people are going to think for themselves. In a larger scale, that is part of what separates humans from animals. We have the brain power, the capacity, to think and behave for ourselves.

Humans do appreciate structure, but they do not appreciate that structure being mitigated by someone who denotes himself as being able to speak for others. Because in the end, what gave Zero that right? It isn’t like the Boss said, “Here, Zero, carry out my legacy.” he apparently came to these conclusions, these decisions, on his own.

There’s something so strange about Zero’s world view. He wants, essentially, to end individualism entirely. Blank faces, blank slates. Utterly meaningless. A gathering of NPC’s. And that will somehow bring the world peace. Again, uniting people is not a bad thing, but people can be united AND have free will. and their own individualism.

I mentioned it in my Les Enfants Terribles post, but again, I’ll expand here. Going on what was said above, Zero seems to have little regard for people overall. But he’s not nearly as docile as he presents himself. He speaks in an even, cordial tone that’s very symbolic of the ‘classic British upper crust’ that became stereotypical of British elites at one time or another, but he makes it very clear that the politeness only goes so far.

He’s incredibly manipulative, to start with. But what makes that fascinating to me is it’s subtly. A lot of what Zero says has a thinly-veiled threat behind it reminding you that for all his posh words and hand-painted tea cups, he’s a combat vet (SAS), an intelligence agent, and intellectually on the same level of manipulation as Ocelot.

See this post for the Ocelot tapes. (I’m already running out of image limits here)

How many people can genuinely claim, within the series, to be able to manipulate, much less threaten, Ocelot?

Kaz doesn’t get off scott-free either, but Zero is far more condescending with Kaz, and less willing to toy.

Not entirely sure how many ways someone could take that, but. Ok.

Except I’m not sure how truthful Zero is being here. as he knows the attack was Skull Face and was, up to this point, working with Skull Face. I COULD argue that he’s keeping Kaz safe from Skull Face, but I’m not sure about that. Mostly because of this conversation from the Skull Face and Zero recording:

I can feel your brimming confidence in Kaz from here, Zero *sarcasm*.

So what is the truth? Honestly..not sure.

Returning to the Kaz and Zero recording:

And Kaz and Ocelot start working together because Zero said so.

At this point, Venom Snake has already been created. A large part of this set up apparently is to get Kaz..to Venom. So not only is Zero manipulating him, but he’s convienently leaving out that the Snake Kaz is going to return to, is going to be another man. The double.

Played like a damned fiddle indeed.

He’s more blunt and talks to Kaz like he’s a whiny child (using his full name, threatening to hang up and then attempting to appeal a bit to his humanity to pacify him). I do regret that again, screen caps are unable to convey tone, but all of these tapes are incredibly well voice acted and you get the message very well.

Anyone can threaten, anyone can make all the statements they please, but Zero is fully willingly, and able, to carry those threats out. Enough so that Ocelot and Kaz are both aware of this, and behave accordingly.

Thinking about that, and how Zero has enough power to keep even Ocelot under thumb (at this point in the mid 1970′s at least) is a very good symbol of how strong, all seeing and all powerful he is. It worries them because it SHOULD worry them. That is the kind of unfathomable control Zero has at this point in time. Even though he knows it’s going to slip away, hence passing control over to Donald Anderson (Sigint). So while Zero himself won’t be in charge, he’s left enough instructions that what he wants to have happen in the world will continue, because that’s the sort of influence he’s got.

And ability.

When Zero was attacked, he was able to escape and take over New York, temporarily.

I think what ends up being further insidious is that Zero’s reach extends far beyond all this. Even after Zero is left virtually comatose from Skull Face’s attack, it hardly matters. Because programs put forth long before any of that happen play out exactly as he planned it. Sigint is able to take over Cipher under the AI’s and eventually the third Les Enfants Terribles child, Solidus Snake, George Sears, is made President of the United due to the will of the Patriots/Cipher.

That same program of course ends up ousting him later on. And responsible for large portions of the MGS2 story. And it’s that same program that eventually becomes the very web-controlled information network that has created the absolutely bleak setting of MGS4.

All because a man with a seemingly unfathomable desire to unify humans under the faceless, the controlled in the belief that he was following the will of a another, and could never accept that he was not only wrong about that will, but that his friend, his buddy, was still a human being. And that he too was a human being.

Obviously, we’ll never get any true insight into how Zero was thinking in regards to all of his motivations. And I do think that his feelings for his friends, and people he did care about *when he could even consider them people in the first place*, was genuine. When he says ‘Wake up soon, old friend” I do think he legitimately does see Snake as a friend. In whatever twisted, bizarre way that may be.

i think he was clever, arrogant, a touch naive and a well done antagonist. I think that the snippets and bits and pieces we get did work well for the purpose of the story, as it would be easy to overuse him and make him cartoonish. So the balance is achieved pretty well. MGS can go over the top sometimes, but in this case, I don’t think they did. I think that there’s much to chew on with Zero, because for all that he is polite, he’s deadly, dangerous, and someone you fervently would never, ever want to cross.

A bit on the nose, but Ocelot sums it all up pretty nicely here, doesn’t he?

#mgs #major zero #nates headcanons #oh look another essay from me #at idk like 11pm or w/e #i largely used MGSV caps for this if not entirely because that's honestly where 90% of the zero info comes from #hes not really mentioned in peace walker #and he's an ally in 3 #theres more in mgs4 but tbh it largely restates what mgsv states already #of course 4 came first but ANYWAY #i started to get tired as i did this but I HAD TO FINISH I HAD TO #this is of course another HOT MESS but i LOVE complicated characters SO MUCH #character posts: major zero

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kaftan · 2 years

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You know when you see a post and you’re like. Well. I do hold this opinion. So I guess in that sense I agree. But everything about how this take is being communicated is so repellent to me that I want to disagree on principle

#I think there is a certain humility you have to possess if you’re going to be a hater about other people’s art. and. well.#this person’s tone is utterly lacking it #also just as a matter of etiquette if you are going to have hot takes about poetry you should first have credentials (being good at poetry)#which. again. no poetry to be found on their blog. hashtag lol. sorry I’m being a little mean but REALLY!#lastly i AM a hater when it comes to lowest-common-denominator no-effort poetry being touted as So Amazing #but 1) that’s because I believe in making art the best it can be—because I deeply love art. 2) I possess a talent for poetry.#disclaimer for point 2 is that I’m quite young and still learning so of course I’m not amazing but I know my shit and I’m an eager learner #but I’ve had my poetry published and remarked on by more accomplished poets. ANYWAY. anyway. my point is. i have credentials #and even with that I still don’t assume I’m the authority on what makes poems good or anything like that!#and I certainly don’t Dunk on bad poetry just to Dunk #which is what that post feels like. tbh. that might be the crux of it #ok essay over I just want to finish by saying this take comes from the same person who thinks tlt is better than baru so.#i don’t need to elaborate. red flags 101. I take my leave now thank you

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unproduciblesmackdown · 1 year

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since it's my legacy, every time it's been like 5 minutes since i last posted about it:

let's take a precious scintillating moment tonight to think about how Autistic Character winston billions is

#manifesting it as such. this is a ''thinking about how winston billions is an autistic character'' blog #the other parts of my legacy can be anonymous b/c who even knows? not me #winston billions #thinking about him and this fact all thee time but not necessarily creating a post about it #not even when i'm talking about him and this fact; which is very often #like of course the short essays reiterating / somewhat expounding expansively on these points will inevitably manifest #but in the meantime. reminders about what's truly important. vital even. at the root and the heart of things.#me yesterday looking at ''criticisms / negative judgments oft leveled at autistic ppl that one might feel they have to compensate for'' via #this diagram like omg alphabetically ''arrogance'' is first. ='] heartbroken emoticon Him....#allistic ppl being thee most clueless lol like oh someone's being friendly; generous; helpful? gotta go sicko mode on them #so jealous of their Social Skills (that is sarcastic)

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todayisafridaynight · 1 year

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The whole giri-ninjo part of the discussion you guys were having scratches a particular itch in my brain! I love all of it but I personally have been caught on that one line for quite a while with Mine.

I'm going to defer mostly to Tenno's interpretation since I'm not particularly studied, but I have some brain-worms about what exactly the concept of giri-ninjo means to Mine specifically.

Giri is a fun word to try and define. It's not just moral obligation, it's societal expectations and informs the kind of loyalty and friendly behavior that comes with business, duty, etc. In gift-giving, there's the obligation to return a gift with another, sending cards out for holidays, etc. It's not negative but it is again, obligation, and built a lot on either reciprocal action or simply the rules of society. Ninjo is quite literally "human feelings", so it encompasses emotions such as love and compassion that can inform giri, or even be in conflict with it. The giri-ninjo value system of what we owe to each other, reliance on one another, is inherent in the dependence bonds that Tenno mentioned.

I believe Mine says something along the lines of how he hates people (Kiryu) who live their lives only on that principle alone. This is really interesting to me, as in a way giri-ninjo seems to define exactly the type of bonds that Mine specifically sought out in the yakuza. Why would he despise it?

For one, he could think Kiryu foolish to believe that he can build his life entirely around these bonds that Mine finds to be fallible and subject to be taken away at any moment. I feel like on top of rejecting interdependence for individualism, there's also the matter of giri mixed in. Mine is quite familiar with relationships built entirely on obligation, especially in a business setting. Relationships where people are kind to one another not because they particularly care, but because it's simply something that you have to do as part of society- the kind of thing that results in the betrayal Mine felt at his former workplace.

Mine wants to care about someone and be cared about, not a concern compelled by duty or the sense that you owe each other. I suppose one could read relationships like this as not only unreliable but also as false. It's the most uncharitable interpretation of giri, but not one that I would put past Mine.

There's a lot more I could spam abt it but it's ground already covered and this is getting long anyway haha. Again don't take this like 1000% seriously I'm only really a native speaker in household conversational and had to learn the rest by aggressively pestering my family for their takes on scenes in Yakuza, and even then people have their own personal reading of things. I just wanted to send bc these thoughts have been spinning in my brain ever since I heard the line the first time.

This kind of interpretation's pretty sensible (if that's the right word anyway) honestly; it's definitely a fair and just assessment, and makes a whole lot of sense in regards to Mine, his wants, and his philosophy! I'm definitely a fan of this exploration of the subject..

#long post #fave #snap chats #aka im suckign it up in a syringe and injecting it into my brain directly #i WISH i could use my words better but just know now MY brain is going to itch about this #of course as you said the term and all else can be interpreted in different ways #but going off the idea that giri-ninjo is more out of obligation than a personal desire to help #it really does help reinforce mine's aggression towards people like kiryu #AGAINN IM BAD AT WORDS I FEEL BAD FOR NOT WRITING ENOUGH BUT JUST KNOW IM A FAN #definitely bookmarking this to rotate in my mine essay later #heh... im free from school i CAN work on that essay....#maybe some other time.... my brain is very small i need to train it first..#but thank you immensely for writing in i love the ways we're talking about mine this week #i feel like i havent been able to really discuss mine so in-depthly so it's been a lot of fun and really eye opening

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