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the-woker · 14 days

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The whole Jason Todd is girl-coded debate thing admittedly just rubs me the wrong way.

I understand that there are people who consider gender as a concept and there are other people who consider gender to be something very real. Both are correct and very valid statements of expression, but someone who is genderless and has a heavy respect and fondness for the feminine and people with such experiences, I feel like what we are declaring 'girl-coded' should probably be a bit more analyzed and taken with more care.

I have no ill-will to any of the people who post about this, they all seem like kind people, and everyone is entitled to their opinions and to posting them. There is nothing wrong with projecting onto a character, identifying with their struggle and using that to cope with your trauma. As someone who’s favorite character of all time is Jason Todd, and enjoys gender-weirdness, and has been severely mistreated for being perceived as feminine before, I understand entirely.

But there's a point when I can't help but feel uncomfortable with assigning being violent, a victim, “hysterical angry-like a girl”, expressing rage via screaming, and looking up to women in general as 'girl moments' and explicitly stating these as the reasons a male character is girl coded. And those have been the very specific points I have seen cited as what traits Jason has that make him "girl-coded."

I'm putting this all under a read more since this discussion is really not that deep, nor is it really relevant to the average Jason Todd tag surfer. It's just something I keep seeing talked about in the past few months.

Admittedly, just to begin with, the argument that what makes Jason ‘girl-coded’ is the fact that he is a victim in general, has strong connections with women, tends to like strong and muscular women, and has been vitriol in his screaming matches with other characters simply does not sit well with me as an explanation for what people are associating women with. A female character can indeed do everything Jason did in a comic story, and I would enjoy it greatly, however staking these specific traits of his as the “feminine” ones is treading into a dangerous territory.

Especially since I’ve seen a few times now that people are claiming Jason and Batman’s fight in UTRH to be a Patriarchy metaphor and how Jason represents women’s struggles. The first problem I have with that claim, is very simply that Jason and Bruce’s fight is explicitly not about Bruce being a system that failed to protect Jason.

Nor is it about a pressure for Jason to return to conforming to Bruce and his rules. Bruce wants him back with him, because Bruce loves Jason, but at no point does he attempt to force him to return to him, nor does he even force him to stop killing. He certainly gets in the way and he prevents several of them, but when given the direct choice to either kill or force Jason to stop killing, he simply walks away and only intervenes after Jason attempts to kill Bruce himself. Calling this an analogy for women fighting against oppression by an organized system designed to exploit them, is not an apt metaphor, as likable and sympathetic as it is towards Jason, and I’d personally recommend avoiding it.

In general, on that topic. The argument could be made for other male members of the Batfam (take Dick Grayson’s constant sexual harassment for being a ‘pretty boy’ for example.), but Jason is also simply just not a victim of the Patriarchy.

Unlike Stephanie Brown, Jason was accepted immediately by Bruce as Robin and as part of the family. He was murdered by his mother for being an obstacle in her operation of stealing from starving people, and by a madman who killed him for being one of his nemeses. His murder was upsetting but had nothing to do with him not presenting himself as society claimed he should, nor for not obeying said society's customs and arbitrary rules.

Under the Red Hood is a fascinating, engaging, philosophical, and extremely emotional piece of media and it’s a favorite for many people (including me) for a reason. Highlighting Jason’s actions as being a ‘girl moment’ when he is intentionally trying to push past Bruce’s only boundary, however, is an uncomfortable idea to proclaim. Especially considering when and how Bruce tries to negotiate and reason with Jason. Jason quite literally holds their relationship, and his life, over Bruce in an attempt to get him to behave how he wants, claiming that he does so as an expression of femininity has horrible implications. Jason is entirely allowed to do what he wants (I enjoy it greatly. His violence is very sexy and honestly we should bring it back) but that is a gender neutral choice, and I wouldn’t say that this run nor his backstory have much in common with women’s struggles to label them as “clearly being such”.

Additionally, The narrative is also not portraying Jason as “hysterical”; this was his first proper return to comics after 20 years. The intention of the narrative is to challenge the morality of Batman and to open an in-universe line of discourse for a discussion that for years, has been, and still is relevant in the comic community.

Jason’s death was notoriously the moment that Batman got closest to breaking his rule and so they brought Jason back to be the character who pushed him on why he maintained it. They made Jason angry and violent to raise the stakes of what the Joker did to him, and to raise the question of if there was a crime so horrible that it was a moral failing to continue the pacifist approach to criminal reform. Jason is being treated in a significantly kinder light than most of the characters we would traditionally see doing these actions. We all agree Lock-up was a bad guy, we can agree that the League of Assassins is wrong, but we’re given a chance to take Jason at face value and are not immediately told how to feel despite the narrative showing us his violence in a raw and uncut way. Killing a bunch of drug dealers while rising in the ranks of the drug trade yourself is hardly a selfless act of good after all.

Disclaimer 1: I don’t think Jason is entirely wrong about many things. But I simply do not believe Bruce “owes” him killing, and that it is wrong of Jason to demand this of him or anyone for that matter. Nobody owes you their innocence and you aren’t entitled to breaking anyone’s boundaries.

Disclaimer 2: I cannot stress enough how much I like Jason. This post is not meant to make anyone feel bad, or make Jason seem like the “bad guy” of the fandom. It’s simply a disservice to his character to write him off as nothing more than an angry victim and call it an expression of femininity, and a reminder to be a bit more careful when labeling and assigning traits.

#do what you'd like of course. you are as entitled to your opinions as i am mine #it is kinda sad though that there is a tendency to keep finding ways to make male characters depict the ''''female experience''''#instead of analyzing the female characters we already have #stephanie brwn is so fascinating and so good her entire background + batgirl + robin run and her relationship with her dad #are all sooooo... (misspelling her name on purpose so this doesnt show up in her tag)#jason todd #red hood #batman: under the red hood #jason todd is girlcoded debate #jay says

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arysthaeniru · 10 months

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Things I find are handled so interestingly well in the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist compared to Brotherhood:

Ishval! The true horror and terror of Ishval is handled so much better: it is the centre of the show’s thesis about the violence done against other people in the name of scientific progress and the empire’s violence

Speaking of: racism is handled better in this show too! The way that Ed and Al are so callous and dismissive about Ishval through most of the show, despite Marcoh’s warnings, and it really doesn’t hit them until they go there in person and realize that Rick and Rio have suffered just like them: in fact, Rick and Rio have suffered even more than them. Ed and Al can always go back to Resembool. Rick and Rio can’t. The casual racism of our main characters is really good! It’s very realistic that Ed and Al believe the racist lies about Ishval for SO LONG, despite rationally understanding the military is bad

Liore! Because Liore gets to have this back-and-forth with Ishval, you get this really strong empathy and solidarity between Rose and Scar, as this representation of Ishval and Liore: religious brown people versus the Empire coming to genocide them out of existence...the solidarity and love between Scar and Rose and the peoples of Ishval and Liore is really good!

Ed and Al really get to be kids and get to be wrong a lot? They get to be such unreliable narrators in a way that is so interesting! When they say something about alchemy or make comments on other characters, they’re often wrong and misguided! Ed’s petulance and anger and stubborn defiance and Al’s naivete and inability to question other people’s lies gets them in trouble way more often than it does in Brotherhood and it really emphasizes just how much he and Al are children out of their depth in a horrible system, in a way that Brotherhood often doesn’t.

The metaphor of alchemy: Alchemy IS science. For all its goods, it is all the evils and fallouts of unethical science: science that is done at the expense of people, science that is done in the name of greed, science that is done only in the name of violence, and with this strong metaphor, the Philosopher’s Stone as this pinnacle of progress that is built on the blood of common people is just a less complicated metaphor. Because Alchemy is science and FMA 2003 is a commentary on imperialistic, colonial science that is so directly commenting on the Gulf War, it gets to say things much more angrily than I think Brotherhood ever gets to?? You feel the anger about the lies of the Gulf War in FMA 2003 and how it parallels to WW2 better. The animators seem more angry and I enjoy that more!

(More about pacing, characterization and the overall tone of the show under the cut!)

Although the show ultimately whiffs it, the homunculi being the leftover remnants of human transmutation allows for so many climatic, interesting conflicts between both the homunculi and humans, but also between different humans! Ed and Izumi and their relationship in this show is defined by their fundamental disagreements regarding the role of alchemy and what to do with the homunculi: and it is SO good!

I love that the homunculi are resentful of humans for living and want the philosopher’s stone to be human again! I could do without them all being controlled by a mysterious entity who is so much more boring than all of the other homunculi, but hey. That happened in Brotherhood too, Father’s very boring.

Speaking of the homunculi: they are so much scarier and intimidating!! When they show up to a fight, pretty much everybody loses! It’s great! It’s not until the last 10-15 episodes of the show that Ed is able to actually put up a fight against them, so you really feel the stakes everytime they show up on screen. They kill Hughes masterfully, they beat the shit out of Scar, they beat the shit out of Ed and Al, they beat the shit out of Izumi--they’re genuinely scary and I love it! In Brotherhood, they are able to evenly fight them SO MUCH MORE QUICKLY and I think it makes them less of a threat than in 2003.

The main women in Ed and Al’s lives get so much more to do! Maria, Sheska, Izumi and Winry all have a HUGE amount of screentime compared to Brotherhood, where Winry is mostly just running around and has very little initiative to investigate the main plot! Here, she and Sheska investigate homunculi, participate in fights and really are emotionally impacted by events. Izumi barely shows up in Brotherhood ever, and she is a fundamental player in the game in 2003! And Lieutenant Maria Ross gets to really actually play the role of ‘first adult to be like CHILDREN SHOULDN’T BE IN THE ARMY’ which gives her genuine depth and emotionality.

Oh, Martel’s a real character too! She and Al are fun, I enjoy their banter and I enjoy that she gets to really emphasize to Ed and Al that Ishval was entirely a false-flag operation

Rose too! I love that Rose comes back as a real character and not cameo! I love that Rose’s rape too, is not just this moment where Ed truly and really realizes that the military does interpersonal violence, but also is something that motviates Rose herself! I love that moment where she screams at Ed to keep walking, just as he shouted at her at the beginning of the show. I love that her continuing on as a character means that Ed’s shitty speech at the beginning of the show gets to be recontextualized as a thing of strength again. I love her resilience, and I love her.

On the villain-side, at the expense of Greed being a character, Lust gets to be a very sympathetic character! I love her contemplations on why she wants to be human, I love her slow realization that she’s tired of the fight, I love her immediate betrayal of Dante once she realizes that Dante is just using her, I adore her and Envy’s petty bickering. She gets so much depth by being formerly human and being linked to Ishval.

Speaking of Winry: Roy killing Winry’s parents is just. So much better. I love how it immediately breaks Winry’s faith in the government entirely, I love how much it really and truly shows how the Amestrian military is evil. I love how it really creates this moment of weakness and vulnerability in Roy, which he doesn’t get nearly as much in the other show! Roy’s too cool in Brotherhood! I love how young, sad and pathetic he is when he kills the Rockbells, it really sells the horrors of war much better.

I really like getting to see Ed and El’s counterparts across all of the side characters: the characters that only show up for one or two episodes: everybody is brothers. Everybody is consumed by this burning posessive love. But nobody goes as far as Ed and Al are willing to. I love how they are confronted with their mistakes and failures everywhere they go! It really sets the tone of horror. It really sells Ed and Al as the protagonists of a dramatic tragedy. They made the mistake, and they will make it again, in the name of love!

A small thing: but I love that Izumi and Ed disagree with what the Gate is? I love that Ed thinks of the Gate as Truth. And Izumi doesn’t! Izumi simply thinks it is a horror. Izumi thinks that what insight the gate gave her was not truth but something else, and I agree with her. I love the idea that Ed’s conception of reality is based on him being Mr. Edgy Angsty Atheist! I love that the gate is silent in 2003, I like that there are very little answers. And I agree with Izumi! The answer to the question: what lies behind the ultimate taboo of science is NOT truth!! It doesn’t quite make sense!

Relatedly, I love that Ed learns all of his horrible communication skills and bottling everything up coping mechanisms from Izumi. They make all the same mistakes all the time! Izumi always takes everything on her shoulders even though she has help, as does Ed. Izumi never communicates her love and appreciation for the people around her, letting her actions do the speaking, as does Ed. They are terrible mirrors of each other, and I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

I like that Armstrong is not comic relief? He puts on ‘Mr Muscle Man’ as a facade about three times in 2003, and every single time, it’s a distraction, it’s supposed to make people look elsewhere. Most of the time in 2003, he’s incredibly solemn and serious, as he tries to endure doing the wrong thing in the name of duty. I love that he’s still suffering the consequences of being too kind in Ishval.

I like that Mustang, Hawkeye and all our favourite main characters put Ishvalans in trains and take them off to concentration camps. It’s not very subtle with its metaphor, but it shouldn’t be. If anything, Brotherhood deeply de-emphasizes the horrendous nature of the genocidal play of the army and the constant violence they partake in. Roy and his people are so heroic in Brotherhood, and I really like how much they are complicit. How much they are ultimately soldiers who are ‘just following orders’ in a genocidal regime.

I like that they don’t turn to act for the side of good until the very end of the show. I think it highlights the stakes a bit more. I like that the show makes us doubt Roy for a lot longer before finally giving Ed hope! It’s far more cathartic!

I like that Paninya ISN’T ACTUALLY A THIEF???? I like that Paninya is just a gal who wants to make her adoptive dad proud and she steals Ed’s pocketwatch not for Winry to teach her a lesson about how ‘stealing is bad’ but that Ed gets the lesson that he’s not the only one that makes automail work for him! I love that Ed loses actually in 2003!

I really enjoy Fletcher and Russell. Fletcher especially is my good boy. He and Al should hang out more :)

I really like that Kimblee starts out as a fugitive in 2003! There is something so slimey in Brotherhood where the army just immediately takes him out of jail to track the Elric brothers: it definitely shows just how evil the Amestrian army is, but I think I prefer him being a traitor to Greed’s gang! I love how much more personal Martel makes her fury with him! I like how it takes a while for the military to take him back in here, mostly because it allows for Archer to be a character instead.

I think Archer being a character makes Kimblee more effective: Kimblee is not Ed’s enemy. He’s Scar’s enemy. And I LOVE that in 2003.

Archer’s initial attempt to do the right thing instantly being overtaken by craven greed is also a really fun arc! I just enjoy more military characters getting to be pieces of shit.

Scar gets to interact with more Ishvalan characters because he’s not tied down by far too large an entourage cast, and as a result, he is just. SO much better. I love that he and his mentor fight and talk and he ties himself to the refugees of Ishval in a way he doesn’t quite get to in Brotherhood. I LOVE his determination to make a Philosopher’s Stone out of the military’s lives. I love that he has no hesitation about it either. This is praxis!

I love that Ishvalan people’s legacy is alchemy too! I like that alchemy is the lost art, the old art, and not something that missed Ishvalans by entirely! Although I do like that Scar’s brother in Brotherhood is trying to combine alchemy and alkahestry, I LOVE that 2003 is simply him going back to Ishval’s ancient history. It makes the science metaphor more interesting, especially when you see that apparently the ancient Ishavalsn found out how to make a Philosopher’s Stone and then rejected it and alchemy entirely as a result. I think it’s really interesting worldbuilding!

I love that whole sequence where Ed kind of makes Wrath’s hatred of him worse? I love how mean and obsessive Ed can be in the show sometimes, I love how flawed and interesting he is. He really feels like a teenager lashing out against the cruel world, and it emphasizes the tragedy of it all.

I love that Hohenheim’s immortality is NOT an accident. I like that he actively did evil things to gain immortality and I like that now his is a story of regret! I think it makes Hohenheim so much more compelling when he is a man seeking repetence for an actual sin instead of being tricked? I think it’s more compelling that he has the same sins as his sons. I like that he was the first to do human transmutation and the first to make a Philosopher’s stone, and that these are Ed and Al’s legacy?? It’s so interesting and fun!

The slow pacing really allows for the tragedy to actually build! I love how slow yet purposeful all the episodes are! The only truly filler episodes are the weird episode about the sexy female thief that keeps tricking Al because Al is too horny/naive, and the Mustang Team’s side adventures. Every other filler episode is doing important work for building the themes of the show! And even the two filler episodes are doing importent things re: characterization!

Shou Tucker is such a CREEPY minor villain that is used to perfection in 2003. I love how he keeps showing up, I love how awful he is, and I love how much more significant he and Nina are to 2003, because Ed and Al spend four episodes with them instead of their story being wham-blam-ka-blam like it is in Brotherhood, where everything with them happens in 1 episode.

Laboratory Five is SO MUCH MORE DEVASTATING as a dramatic tension point for Ed! I love how much more evil it is! I love how much more hopeless the situation is. I LOVE the dramatic irony of Ed almost killing hundreds of people because he believed Shou Tucker, despite everything. It’s so good. It makes Brotherhood’s Lab Five Arc pale in comparison.

Hot Take: I kind of love that Ed goes to Nazi Germany by going through the Gate xD They don’t spend nearly enough time on it, but I kind of adore it anyway. FMA 2003 said subtlety is for cowards, and they were CORRECT!

Things I think weren’t as good but still interesting

Brotherhood really went off with making the homunculus the root of the nation-state of Amestris. I love that in Brotherhood, the state was founded for the explicit purpose of genocidal violence, and the homunuculus as simply the underside of the genocidal turn, the secret police that make the state violence seem legitimate. The hazy relationship between the military/state and the homunuculus muddies the otherwise clear message that 2003 is going for re: state violence and the role of science in perpetrating/continuing violence.

Dante’s bad. Not that Father is GOOD, not in any way, but Dante’s plan is very stupid and is very underexplained. Why do Trisha and Bradley still follow Dante when she clearly reveals she’s just using them to prolong her own life and has no intention of making them human? Why do they not immediately just turn traitor like Lust does--the show never builds any real loyalty between Dante and the other homunculi, which makes for a rushed climax, alas. (I do LOVE her and Hohenheim’s bodies physically rotting, that’s some really fun body horror! And I can’t help it, I love exes who were evil scientists and one continued to be evil, and one repented. It’s a fun trope and it was DEEPLY underutilized, alas)

I’m sad Scar died! 2003 obviously has an incredibly high body count and I defend all of them, but Scar dying is just kinda sad! I like that he has to live with himself in Brotherhood and make Ishval again.

Greed doesn’t get to do much at all, and his weird acceptance of his own death is VERY strange compared to his own acceptance of being a man so greedy that he wants everything. Although I ended up liking his role as Ed’s first murder, I think Greedling is SUCH a highlight of Brotherhood, that its absence felt jarring.

May Chang and Ling are such good characters, and I miss Xing! I think I really end up liking 2003′s laser focus on Ishval more, in the end, I think it does a better job of focusing on genocide and racial violence as the catalyst for the state’s and science’s expansion. But May and Ling are such lovely characters and I missed them.

Al’s angst about maybe not being a real person goes on for SO LONG. I forgot it’s like a full four episodes! It’s the one emotional stake that doesn’t quite feel as impactful as the rest of the show.

Sloth-Trisha had so much potential that was squandered, I loved when she finally became a fighting antagonist, but I wish they’d spent more time on Ed and Al arguing about her and what to do with her/what she means. I mean, it tracks with them both: that Al instantly goes ‘oh, homunculi are remnants of human transormati--OMIGOD MOM’S OUT THERE’ and Ed’s like ‘i refuse to think about this until the last possible minute’ it’s very in character, but it means they never get to really fight about killing Sloth-Trisha, which is a shame!

#fullmetal alchemist #fma #i have way too many opinions #haha #these are all deeply personal and subjective of course #if you like brotherhood more still YOU ARE SO VALID #there's a lot to love about brotherhood!#but i have such ADORATION in my heart for 2003 and what 2003 angrily says #i think ultimately 2003 is just a genre i enjoy more #2003 is a dramatic tragedy and a horror anime while also following some shonen tropes #while brotherhood is just full on shonen #and brotherhood is good shonen!! but i just enjoy horror and tragedy so so much more #which is why i have such deep love in my heart for 2003

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dmc-questions-anon · 9 months

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vexenya · 10 months

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Hot take I actually liked the manga Devilman artstyle. Yes I know they look silly and goofy and Go Nagai clearly did not know how to draw Ryo for an embarrassing amount of time but it’s charming to me in a way

Also it gets better later on especially with faces and body language, like oh my god they’re so expressive it’s such an improvement from 😦 MY FATHER DIED 😏 BECAUSE OF THAT I BECAME TOTALLY ALONE HE WAS MY ONLY FAMIL

#devilman #ramble #Also he is good at drawing backgrounds #I just want to know how he learned to draw backgrounds at complicated perspectives and fit characters in them as well #of course it isn’t perfect and it does not fit Devilman at all but I have silly opinions #And I like silly art #I Am Silly

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kicktwine · 8 months

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*Shakes you like a marionette* THANK YOU! You get it! I've been trying to tell people for -so long- that ARR (and post) is purposely taking its time to build up the characters, the story, the -entire world- that you're going to spend the next who-knows-how-many-hours/days/weeks/months exploring and adventuring and experiencing and -feeling- through! It might not be "the best paced", but god damn it if I still don't love all the random asides and non-plot moments that just -shapes everything-

(BANGS GAVEL)

LET THEM COOK!!!

#to be clear this is not to say a bunch of story decisions and pacing issues were Fine Actually And Perfect #of course not! the feast while Titan is definitely awakening was odd pacing. the sylphs took way too much long back and forth. f’lhammin;;;#HOWEVER!!!! I am of the opinion that you should play through all of that ANYWAYS #because the things they do and tell you and sneak characterization into within the bits that could have used work are still valuable !#because CRUCIALLY because because — it has Payoff #you are there for reasons. some big some long-term some unnecessary but kinda fun #dark road I think… had less of an effect on me because it didnt have good payoff. I would forgive the messy pacing and uneven attention #to characters they want us to get attached to much more if the end was also constructed better. the end was FUN! but-#look imagine if we’d been with baldr More? They were cooking and it was interesting but the payoff could have used different #(or more) buildup emotionally and attachment-wise. I love murder. it is shock value; not cast interest; that makes it fun #ask #anon #(pacing) I would have to craft an osp video on what constitutes media that does this meandering absurdity thing well and Less Well #MUCH easier to do in a video game where you are the main character! Everything can be relevant to your growth #like homestuck does it well EXCEPT when it doesn’t. most of problem sleuth is easily forgotten #anyways. cuts myself off of essayifying my opinion #that’s enough of that you and me are amiably shaking hands anon

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heloflor · 10 months

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After seeing a playthrough of Bowser’s Inside Story, I gotta say I’m kind of mixed on Starlow, and no, it’s not just because of the Luigi bullying.

The thing with Starlow is that, on one hand, it’s great to see a female character who has no hesitation talking back and who can be a bit of an ass. But at the same time, the way they wrote her just…it really makes it hard to like her sometimes.

I think the main issue is that she’s written as someone who talks back but most of those interactions are with people doing their jobs and messing up. This leads to moments with Starlow criticizing someone for the things they’re doing, but then proceeding to do nothing whatsoever to help. On top of that, she’s kind of useless in the game, making her “I’m better than you” attitude really come off in a bad way.

(btw that moment with the doctor/fortune-teller calling her out on it is very satisfying)

The best way to describe the issue, and that’s when it gets interesting, is to compare her to how Bowser is written in this game. There are essentially two things that are similar yet different about those two.

1. Like I said, Starlow is often criticizing people for what they’re doing, which is something Bowser does as well. But where Starlow goes “Man you suck at your job. Do better !” Bowser goes “Man you suck at your job. Here, let me do it for you !” and that automatically makes Bowser more likeable. Because instead of just complaining, he actually does things (the section with the Monty Moles for example).

2. A bit longer to explain but the Tl;Dr is that Bowser actually learns from his mistakes and grows while Starlow doesn’t. To explain this, I want to describe two interactions between those two.

The first interaction is when Bowser forgets the code to his safe and orders Starlow to find it, to which Starlow gets angry with his tone and tells him to fuck off, only accepting to help once he politely asks her to search. That right here is really good, and is an example of a moment where I really like Starlow’s attitude.

But then you have their next interaction. Bowser just spent hours stuck in a safe (btw someone stuck in a liminal space like that is a form of torture), was thrown into the garbage so hard the safe broke, and understandably is in enormous pain. Because of that, Bowser asks Starlow to help with his back, and his dialogue here echoes the previous one in a good way.

He starts off his sentence as an order, only to catch himself halfway through and ask politely. Bowser just went through hell, is in a huge amount of pain, and yet still finds it within himself to be polite because he knows that’s how Starlow wants to be addressed. This also shows that he respects Starlow since he remembered that detail about her and is willing to avoid falling into his usual bossy attitude despite his terrible state.

And what does Starlow do in return ? She basically calls him a whiney bitch for complaining. Yeah….this is not a good look.

This actually reminds me of one of their first interactions, when Bowser can’t produce fire and panics about it, with Starlow telling him to just deal with it. The first time I saw this dialogue I was like “Hey Starlow, buddy, how would you feel if you suddenly lost your ability to fly, with no idea of why and the only one that might help is some random voice you don’t know anything about coming from your stomach ?” Although, I’d cut Starlow some slack for this one since this is very early on, so Starlow has every right to be mad at him.

And more on that topic, the thing with comparing Bowser and Starlow is that you quickly realize how much better Bowser is than her. I already mentioned Bowser doing things himself and showing respect to her, but then there’s also moments like him being humble enough to eat Wiggler’s carrot when being ordered to to “take responsibility”, or when he out loud says he will break the rocks in his path to free the Koopas, and decide to commit to it upon realizing the Koopas heard him. In that second case, he could’ve easily gone a different path and tell the Koopas to shut up if they were to say anything, but he didn’t. Instead, he said he will break that rock and that’s what he’s going to do ! Same for the Wiggler btw. He could’ve beaten them up instead of eating that carrot, which he does end up doing afterwards when Wiggler loses their shit.

So yeah, when you look at how not-very-useful Starlow is compared to Bowser, when you look at how they treat others, and when you look at their interactions with each other…it’s kinda hard to find Starlow likeable when a literal villain is a better person than she is (granted Bowser is more of an anti-hero in this game but the point still stands).

Funnily enough, some of those moments like the Wiggler, the Koopas and him saying please to Starlow while in pain actually show that yes, Bowser is a pretty decent king. At the very least, you can understand why his people respect him.

So all-in-all, yeah, I’m kind of 50/50 on Starlow. It’s great to have a female character on the hero team who has a lot of flaws for once, but it’s also hard to find her attitude likeable. Ultimately, I think the issue is how she’s acting the same with everyone. Like I said earlier, it is satisfying when Bowser is being a dick and she tells him off. But when Bowser is being nice, or when she’s interacting with someone who’s only trying to help, Starlow really comes off as an ass, which is not a good look.

And yes, while still a minor thing in BIS, her bullying Luigi doesn’t help either.

#Mario and Luigi #Bowser's Inside Story #Mario and Luigi BIS #Starlow #Bowser #Super Mario #Flor talks #long post #of course I had to give my opinion about the yellow orb the fandom seems divided about #not me low-key calling Starlow a Karen in the way I describe her #I mean I really don't think she is one; but she does talk badly to people just doing their jobs #especially if that person doing his job is a green man with an L on his head #btw the let's play I saw didn't do any sidequests; not even the Shroobs one; so it's possible I missed some moments of Starlow being nice #(also Starlow is weirdly incredibly nice to Peach and acts all buddy with her despite them barely knowing each other #and makes quite the big deal about Peach needing to be kept safe + is already on a first-name basis with her #like forget 'Starlow likes Luigi but hides it behind bullying'; I think Starlow's actually crushing on Peach !)#also I really hope the next two games have more interactions between her and Bowser #because they do make a really good duo with a fun dynamic

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saemi-the-dreamer · 5 months

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For unpopular opinions: franmaya (Ace Attorney) is an annoyingly overrrated ship and fans willfully ignore the few potentially interesting aspects of it in favor of creating a generic soft, uwu cutesy ship that seems ooc for both characters.

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

Same Anon, same!! I never really got how it became so popular and while I can see why it can be liked - there is some potential for a good slow burn! - it seems more like they paired up the 2 most popular and same age female characters of the franchise to avoid " GASP! AGE GAP?! No, there it's not problematic! :D " (as if there is nothing that could turn sour between them or make them toxic for each other....)

#ace attorney #unpopular opinion ask #Saemi answers #not talking about ALL the fans OF COURSE!!#I'm sure there are some very good art #comic or fanfic for them #but it's just not my thing #franmaya critical

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suncaptor · 4 months

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the thing about viewing Jack as a child versus not is that if you're basing it in most ways you would view children and look at it as "infantilization" because Jack is physically developed & communicative in a way that makes you take him seriously then the issue perhaps is how you view children and how they should be treated in the first place. because the ways in which children are vulnerable Jack very much of the time ALSO IS. that is WHY what is happening to him is specifically child abuse. everything that is happening to him is a formative experience regardless of the lack of neurological development that has to happen because it is all he knows. children should be respected the same way Jack should be and children should be protected in the same ways Jack should be. the idea he can speedrun all of the things that make children vulnerable because of being able to control his physical development is kind of ridiculous. time alive allows us to have different ways of forming schemas and understanding how this world and the people in it works. Jack spends this time being abused & traumatised by war. that impact is foundational to his development of his perception even if his brain development stayed the same throughout it.

#he VERY MUCH is in his first and earliest stage of life. he just jumpstarted his development and communication.#AND THAT IS INTERESTING. but he like. absolutely is still vulnerable the way children are as a result. there are of course major difference #like in terms of he has physical strength & powers as well as the way he thinks goes beyond a lot of early markers #due to the development #but man I developed the way I think that matches much of how I do now EXTREMELY young #due to asynchronic development in part #that didn't make me less vulnerable. it just make it way more frustrating the way people treated me #the issue with my perception wasn't due to development it was due to the fact I Didn't Know As Much beyond what was immediately around me #short term. i didn't have time for that age.#that's why like a fully developed teenager isn't necessarily ready to be in a relationship with a grown adult for example.#in humans these sort of age and development we know on a particular scale #but the way we treat children in general is an issue!!!#regarding Jack & sex I feel like so many ways you would slice it there's extreme power imbalances on his end. but I don't really care to #get into all that but I'm not going to be like 'yeah bc supernatural a show where the main character has on multiple occasions flirted with #or wanted to flirt with teenage girls' is like. a good barometer for that anyways #and if calling someone a child is an insult then you need to change how you perceive children.#however!!! children SHOULDN'T be heading armies in the apocalypse. this is an opinion I do think exists for both children and Jack.#he makes me so sad oh my god #jack kline #jack #spn #supernatural #incoherents

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britneyshakespeare · 6 months

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So yesterday I read "Slimed with Gravy, Ringed by Drink" by Camille Ralphs, an article from the Poetry Foundation on the publication of the First Folio in 1623, a major work without which most of Shakespeare's plays might very well have been lost today, possibly the most influential secular work of literature in the world, you know.

It's a good article overall on the history and mysteries of the Folio. Lots of interesting stuff in there including how Shakespeare has been adapted, the state of many surviving Folios, theories of its accuracy to the text, a really interesting identification of John Milton's own copy currently in the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the fascinating annotations that may have influenced Milton's own poetry!!! Do read it. It's not an atrociously long article but there's a lot of thought-provoking information in there.

There's one paragraph in particular I keep coming back to though, so I'm just gonna quote it down here:

...[T]he Play on Shakespeare series, published by ACMRS Press, the publications division of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University... grew out of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s plan to “translate” Shakespeare for the current century, bills itself “a new First Folio for a new era.” The 39 newly-commissioned versions of Shakespeare’s plays were written primarily by contemporary dramatists, who were asked to follow the reasonable principle laid out by series editor Lue Douthit: tamper in the name of clarification but submit to “do no harm.” The project was inspired by something the linguist John McWhorter wrote in 1998: “[the] irony today is that the Russians, the French, and other people in foreign countries possess Shakespeare to a much greater extent than we do … [because] they get to enjoy Shakespeare in the language they speak.”

Mainly it's the John McWhorter thing I keep coming back to. Side note: any of my non-native-English-speaking mutuals who have read Shakespeare, I would love to know your experiences. If you have read him in translation, or in the original English, or a mix of both. It's something I do wonder about! Even as an Anglophone reader, I find my experience varies so much just based on which edition of the text I'm reading and how it's presented. There's just so much variety in how to read literature and I would love to know what forces have shaped your own relationships to the stories. But anyway...

The article then goes on to talk about how the anachronistic language in Shakespeare will only fall more and more out of intelligibility for everyone because of how language evolves and yadda yadda yadda. I'm not going to say that that's wrong but I think it massively overlooks the history of the English language and how modern standard English became modern standard English.

First of all, is Shakespeare's language completely unintelligible to native English speakers today? No. Certain words and grammatical tenses have fallen out of use. Many words have shifted in meaning. But with context aiding a contemporary reader, there are very few lines in Shakespeare where the meaning can be said to be "unknown," and abundant lines that are perfectly comprehensible today. On the other hand, it's worth mentioning how many double entendres are well preserved in modern understanding. And additionally, things like archaic grammar and vocabulary are simply hurdles to get over. Once you get familiarized with your thees and thous, they're no longer likely to trip you up so much.

But it's also doubtful that 400 years from now, as the article suggests, our everyday language will be as hard to understand for twenty-fifth century English speakers to comprehend. The English language has significantly stabilized due to colonialism and the international adoption of English as a lingua franca. There are countless dialects within English, but what we consider to be standard international "correct" English will probably not change so radically, since it is so well and far established. The development and proliferation of modern English took a lot of blood and money from the rest of the world, the legacy of which can never be fully restored.

And this was just barely in sight by the time that Shakespeare died. This is why the language of the Elizabethans and Jacobeans is early-modern English. It forms the foundations of modern English, hence why it's mostly intelligible to speakers today, but there are still many antiquated figures within it. Early-modern English was more fluid and liberal. Spelling had not been standardized. Many regions of England still had slight variations in preferences for things like pronouns and verb conjugation. We see this even in works Shakespeare cowrote with the likes of Fletcher and Middleton, as the article points out. Shakespeare's vocabulary may not just reflect style and sentiment, but his Stratford background. His preferences could be deemed more "rustic" than many of his peers reared in London.

Features that make English more consistent now were not formalized yet. That's why Shakespeare sounds so "old." It's not just him being fancy. And there's also the fact that blank verse plays are an entirely neglected art nowadays. Regardless of the comprehensibility of the English, it's still strange for modern audiences uninitiated to Elizabethan literature to sit there and watch a King drop mad poetry about his feelings on stage by himself. The form and style of the entire genre is off.

But that, to me, is why we should read Shakespeare. We SHOULD be challenged. It very much IS within the grasp of a literate adult fluent in English to read one of his plays, in a modern edition with proper assistance and context. It is GOOD to be acquainted with something unfamiliar to us, but within our reach. I'm serious. I do not think I'm so much smarter than everyone else because I read Shakespeare. I don't just read the plain text as it was printed in the First Folio! The scholarship exists which has made Shakespeare accessible to me, and I take advantage of that access for my own pleasure.

This is to say that I disagree with the notion that Shakespeare is better suited to be enjoyed in foreign tongues. I think that's quite a complacent, modern American take. Not to say that the sentiment of McWhorter is wrong; I get what he's saying. And it's quite a beautiful thing that Shakespeare's plays are still so commonly staged, although arguably that comes from a false notion in our culture that Shakespeare is high literature worth preserving, at the expense of the rest of time and history. It is true that his body of work has such a high level of privilege in the so-called Western literary canon that either numerous other writers equally deserve, or no writer ever could possibly deserve.

The effort that goes into making Shakespeare's twenty-first century legacy, though, is a half-assed one. So much illustrious praise and deification of the individual and his works, and yet not as much to understanding the context of his time and place, of his influences, forms, and impacts on the eras which proceeded him. Shakespeare seems to exist in a vacuum with his archaic language, and we read it once or twice in high school when we're forced to, with prosaic translations on the adjoining page. This does not inspire a true appreciation in a culture for Shakespeare but it does reinforce a stereotype that he must be somehow important. It's this shallow stereotype that makes it seem in many minds today that it would be worth it to rip the precise language out of the text of a poet, and spit back out an equivalent "modern translation."

#this is just a stream-of-consciousness rambling. ignore me if im not making sense which im probably not #long post #text post #rant #shakespeare #also to clarify on that last point i am not shitting on the art of translation. AT all.#into other languages that is. nor am i knocking all modern adaptations of shakespeare's works #made with good intent. and also if you enjoy modern translated english shakespeare a la no fear shakespeare #genuinely good for you! that series has helped a lot of people and im glad for them to have that resource #HOWEVER. i WOULD like to challenge the idea that that is the best way to READ shakespeare #i think it's simply a shortcut.#and by all means take a shortcut if what you're reading shakespeare for is the plot. especially if youre new to him!#i DO on the other hand think it is entirely possible for any general reader to eventually be able to read shakespeare #in other types of editions. with the plain text and academic footnotes or annotations.#i do think enjoying the poetry of the works is as enriching as the characters or plot #in fact in the case of characters. the intricacies of the poetry of course enhance them!#you know. like i think the challenge is more doable than we ever really talk about in the mainstream #when you read him in high school you most likely had your english teacher holding your hand through every line #that's basically what the literal prose translations do too. in my opinion.#at least a la no fear shakespeare because those aren't meant to be performed like an equivalent art.#the translations are clarification.#again i think it's entirely possible to adapt the language of shakespeare and even a worthwhile project #but that's not. you know. the thing on the shelves to be read.#we can all still read shakespeare and we are all smart enough to do so.#if we think of early-modern english as another dialect rather than a whole different language #and there are so many mutually intelligible yet very distinct dialects of english around the world today #(the literature of which is also well worth reading) and if one seems approachable. well they all can be.

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