(it’s not for nothing that the zone is addressed as a woman)
that's kinda specific meme I made for myself and one and a half people who are as insane as me to understand da meme
Other things worth mentioning:
Iori Miyazawa openly admits to basically plagiarizing most of his monster designs from Japanese creepypasta forums.
The zone has been steadily softened over the years, turning from a terrifying death trap into a playground where you use guns and superpowers to fight monsters. Oh yeah, and instead of cursing you, it gives you superpowers.
Consequently, the stories have gone from being about disempowerment and class politics to more conventional adventure/power fantasy romps with very little overt social commentary.
There's been a noticeable shift towards treating the zone as a "cool aesthetic" rather than a storytelling tool with purpose.
"full of boring exposition and unnecessary detail" are we talking about the same pafl google doc here... It seems to me that on the contrary, google doc is quite laconic and tells the facts about what is happening right away. pafl music videos are quite literally "show not tell", besides not everything can be shown in a 3 minute music video so that everyone understands what's going on, so I don't understand the nitpicking about google doc at all. like, you've read a whole book, but google docs are too much I guess..
also INVALID POINT BECAUSE ROUGH IS OUT NOW AND EXECUTION WAS ALSO OUT FOR QUITE A TIME NOW SO PAFL ISN'T ONLY MUSIC VIDS AND GOOGLE DOC NOW❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗
besides pafl is like one person's project. who doesn't even do it like. full-time
and idk if you kept talking abt pafl but in last points of your reblog but pafl does have lots of social commentary on the way life in cis countries is, quite literally what rough is about
Yes, I know PAFL has comics too (not just "Rough", but also "Execution" on Itch.io). I'm not ignorant — I omitted it for brevity. If I had to discuss every aspect of PAFL, we'd be here all day.
- "google doc is quite laconic and tells the facts about what is happening right away"
- Exactly, that's why it's boring. There's a clear difference between "telling a story" and "giving a summary of events". The Strugatskys tell a story. Ferry tries to tell a story (with MVs), fails, and then has to explain to the audience what the story was supposed to be. That's the difference.
Roadside Picnic doesn't contain lines like:
"The book is split into 4 chapters. Chapter 3 switches perspective to Richard Noonan."
because you understand that by simply reading. Ferry, on the other hand, does write things like:
"The video can be split into two parts. The 'present' part takes place around 2 weeks after the incident. [...]"
She has to write it, because half the the audience won't pick up on it from watching the videos.
And the doc does undeniably contain tons of unnecessary detail, like the characters' birthdays, height and weight:
Do you think Roadside Picnic would've been a better story if we knew each character's birthday, height, weight, and favorite brand of toothbrush? Cause I'm glad this kind of guff was omitted, and only relevant information was kept.
- "besides not everything can be shown in a 3 minute music video"
- Nobody held Ferry at gunpoint and forced her to tell her story through a series of music videos. That was her choice of medium, and it was a bad one — it clearly wasn't a good fit for the kind of complex, serialized plot she was trying to tell. If it had been a good fit, she wouldn't have felt the need to explain herself in a separate document. The work would have spoken for itself, no clarifications needed. (I'm glad she eventually went on to write comics; that's probably a much better medium for this.)
Even so, there are MANY obvious things that could've been done to improve clarity. For example:
The MVs could've been in chronological order, instead of jumping around the timeline with a random arrangement of prequels and sequels-to-prequels (with flashbacks spliced into them, for good measure).
The characters could have had more distinct faces, so when they're rendered in monochrome or shown as younger versions in flashbacks, they'd be easier to identify.
Some of the more abstract imagery could've been toned down.
Some videos (most notably, the middle section of "The Mill") contain uninterrupted scenes of character dialogue. Why not use these kinds of scenes as intros and/or outros for the songs, which would help set the scene and orient the audience? (This is not uncommon - many music videos have non-musical intros which establish some sort of story.)
These aren't perfect solutions, but they show that PAFL isn't confusing solely because of some "inherent limitation" of music videos. No, Ferry deliberately made the story far more convoluted than it needed to be.
- "besides pafl is like one person's project. who doesn't even do it like. full-time"
- Fair enough. I never said that PAFL wasn't an impressive technical achievement, especially for a solo artist doing it as a hobby. I'm deeply envious of Ferry's skills.
But, and this goes without saying, the fact that it's a solo project has zero impact on what a critic can or cannot say about the quality of its writing, presentation, editing, etc. If it's bad, it's bad. I don't care if it was written by one person or an entire team of writers. This point is a cheap deflection.
- "pafl does have lots of social commentary on the way life in cis countries is"
- To be honest, I'm sure there is some kind of valid social commentary hidden in there somewhere — I'm not very good at interpreting media that is already trying my patience, so a lot of stuff goes over my head.
That said, whatever social commentary it may have, it is VERY difficult to take seriously when the main plot involves a shady institute experimenting on (and eventually planning to execute) children, with the research being headed by a Dr. Temnova (roughly Russian for "Dr. Dark"). This does not scream "well thought-out social commentary". It screams "we are the obvious bad guys™ from a Saturday morning cartoon".
Roadside Picnic does have a lot of very blunt, unsubtle critiques of, say, the police. But it didn't need to name one of its policemen Sgt. Svinyovich to get that point across. (To be fair, R.P. does feature other lazy, downright offensive characters names, like Gutalin, but that's a whole different story).
Anyway, idk, conclusion, summary, TL;DR:
I think my main issue with most "Roadside Picnic inspired" media is less with specific plot points or characters (which may very well work in their own, isolated context), but more the slow, wishy-washy style of presentation (confusing MVs, long-winded light novel series), the lack of harshness in themes and tone (IMO the zone should not give you superpowers), and the shift to a strong visual focus, leading to the zone being treated as an aesthetic.
The thing that best shows this difference, IMO, is comparing their worldbuilding. In Roadside Picnic, the town of Harmont is basically its own character. It has history, infrastructure, politics - we see it evolve and develop throughout the chapters. Before the visitation, it used to be an industrial factory town. After the visitation, it shifted to a service economy, fueled by immigrant labor and tourism. Stalkers were initially a popular profession, but as the supply of artefacts dried up and technology advanced, they were gradually replaced by remote-controlled robots. Throughout the novel, we repeatedly hear about new construction projects, workers protesting for better wages, disgruntled ex-stalkers becoming taxi drivers, etc.
What is the town in PAFL even called? According to Ferry's doc, it's "an Eastern European city". That's it, it doesn't even get a name. It has the research facility, some factories... a club, I guess. That's a start, maybe, but where's the flavor? The texture? Does it exist as anything more than a flat backdrop for whatever dramatic pose the main characters are striking?
Idk, it's 4AM and I'm losing coherence. Maybe I can't explain it with words, but to me, the priorities of these derivative works feel all wrong. They're too visual, too stylish, full of dramatic scenes and camera angles... it's so much, when Roadside Picnic excelled at working with so little (it's almost novella-length). It created a grimy, awkward world which was complicated and alive, and did so simply, clearly, without all this flashiness or pizzazz. No X-men styled superpowers, no shootouts. No guff: no character birthdays, heights and weights... It was just plain, good sci-fi.
"Exactly, that why it's boring"
I think you're missing a point of why google doc exists in the first place. It's here not to tell a story or to be entertaining, it's here to explain context. It's like a footnote in a book, not the whole book. Again, it is not possible to fit the plot in detail into 3 minute music video even with dialogue intros, so it's a fact that the imagery in the MVs should be significant and tell story of its own, that's why it focuses on visual aspects more, and in my opinion it does it successfully, I don't know where you saw "fails to tell a story". I don't think that pafl is some genius work, however, of course, if the viewer does not spend any effort to think and calculate that two plus two is four then they will not understand what is happening in the series even with bunch of google docs with all the explanations. Yes, I myself have questions to pafl narrative (a lot of information is given through Ferry's posts on Patreon, which are later made available on Tumblr, for example. And without Ferry's explanation, Nikita's situation with his gf and the fact that he was basically in prison is completely unclear. But then again, these characters are secondary to pafl, so I can understand why their stories are not really explained)
"And the doc does undeniably contain tons of unnecessary detail, like the characters' birthdays, height and weight"
Are you, perhaps, new to the fandom culture...? Yes, these are unnecessary details but then again it's not unusual for creator's to give such info to their audience. A lot of mangakas even mention characters blood types (Yes, this is because in Japan, blood type is often correlated with personality type, but it's still would be "unnecessary detail" to the average viewer, but for some fan it's going to be piece of lore that they could find interesting)
"That was her choice of medium, and it was a bad one"
Again, I feel like you're just missing a point of why pafl is the way it is and what Ferry and her background has to do with it. Ferry is a voca-P. And I don't know how familiar you are with vocaloid culture, but in vocaloid community whole stories told in songs and MVs are a common thing and often when a song series gets popular it continues to evolve, it then turns into something bigger, like books, novels, manga, anime. Which is basically what's happening now with pafl too. I don't agree with "The Death Of The Author" idea, so knowing that Ferry is Voca-P, and knowing the influence anime and Japanese media culture had on her, it becomes clear why pafl is exactly like this. Simply put, if Ferry choose over media type to tell her story it would've been completely different kind of story by a different kind of author. People tend to do things based on their own capabilities and preferences.
"The MVs could've been in chronological order"
Fair point, and I would even agree, but I think that such a chronology in pafl just works better. First song established conflict and all songs that come after sharpen it. I think that the tension is built well precisely due to timeline not being strict about chronological order, the narrative is quite fluid, due to which it is noticeable how the past still influences the present, this is especially noticeable in the conflict between Sanya and Sergey, since their songs are most directed to the past and contain the most flashbacks, the past literally "haunts" the narrative.
"The characters could have had more distinct faces"
Yeah, I agree with this one.
"Some of the more abstract imagery could've been toned down"
Not exactly sure what you mean by this in the first place. If you're talking about "The Mill" then I probably won't agree.
"Why not use these kinds of scenes as intros and/or outros for the songs, which would help set the scene and orient the audience?"
I don't know how you watched this series, but these type of scenes present in like. Almost in all songs where it's needed? (Conversation between KT and Yura in "KT's Guide To Coolness", Sergey rambling about Sanya to Olya in "Punch It Punk", etc)
"I don't care if it was written by one person or an entire team of writers. This point is a cheap deflection."
I understand what you mean, but comparing someone's passion project to the work of established science fiction classics just makes you look elitist.
"This does not scream "well thought-out social commentary". It screams "we are the obvious bad guys™ from a Saturday morning cartoon"."
Speaking surnames in any media are not a rare phenomenon, I think in this case it's not necessarily to hint she's evil (could also be translated as Dr. Shady tbh, I think it's more to hint on her "has-to-do-something-with-the-zone" type of thing rather her being evil incarcerated), not to mention that she is not shown as a strictly negative character, she's high ranking scientists, but is not a lead researcher, since she obviously does not posses much power in the institution, considering they were about to illiminate Dmitry despite her undeniable bias.
"The lack of harshness in themes and tone"
I get that. That's why I'm glad Rough finally came out! Honestly, I was even put aback at first, because oh wow! Ferry finally showed Yura being really gross. Like, yes, it was already known that he was an alcoholic with vague morals, but the aftermath reality of this were only shown to us now. Also just in general I love the tone of it and that it actually shows Yura being ready to do anything immoral for the money. Like, in Execution Ferry tried to establish this but the tone of the narrative turned out to be more chill, directing the viewer to sympathize with Yura rather than feeling disgusted by his actions and behavior.
"What is the town in PAFL even called? According to Ferry's doc, it's "an Eastern European city". That's it, it doesn't even get a name"
Again, maybe it's more obvious to me as someone who grew up in this environment, but "The city of N" trope in russian literature is a widespread thing, and I believe in pafl such description is used on purpose: name of this town doesn't matter. Giving it a name would give it identity, as you said, will make it character of it's own. But the thing is, this town could be found anywhere, it could be set in Belarus, it could be set in Russia, it could be set in Ukraine, the point is that average viewer from cis country is already familiar with this town, it's the town they grew up in, it's no different from any other town, it's not a character – it's lack of it. If you're familiar with the movie "The Irony of Fate" it's quite literally what this film starts with: cartoon that makes fun of the way russian panel buildings lack personality, making every town the same. Which then correlates with overall mentality of people from cis countries – to be a conformist and like everyone else, not to stand out, which is what gives it such irony of the fact that some characters are literally mutants who would be very happy not to stand out.
Anyway, I think that people can take some existing concepts and change them to suit their story and what they think works for it (that's why it's called inspired by... and not "based on"). Then again, you are comparing already established authors, who have experience behind them, with a person for whom pafl is the first project of this kind. I believe that if you criticize something (especially, if that something is a one person's work), you should keep in mind such things and do some research first. Moreover, Strugatskys were adults who wrote about adults, while Ferry at the time of the first episode of pafl was hardly older than Yura, it's a coming of age series.
I honestly believe that objective criticism does not exist, but I believe that there is constructive criticism and there is destructive criticism, and if you are going to criticize something, you should know at least some context about the author, their background and their abilities.
That's plus or minus everything I wanted to add. I'm unlikely to change your opinion, but it seemed to me that many of your remarks are rather a misunderstanding.
Hey, guess what:
Turns out even THE AUTHOR OF THE THING I'M CRITICIZING agrees with me that music videos are a bad medium for her story, that they mostly exist to make the characters look cool, and that making the audience read 15 pages of homework to even understand what's happening is bloody stupid.
Sorry, what was that about this all being an intentional part of vocaloid culture, and fandom culture, how it's actually really cool and great and I just "don't get it"?
I guess next you'll tell me that Ferry doesn't understand her own story, and that this decision is a mistake? Yeah, right.
Get schooled.
bros so obsessed w me they came back year after 😭😭😭 that's insane have a great day
