#gndrz

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annoyingly-delayed third booster acquired.

get you a girl with a short skirt in a loooooooooong ongoing pandemic.

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A selection of analysis and reflection not on this tumblr of mine, from and about this last decade.

Land of the Lustrous (2017-), then Kill Six Billion Demons (2013) - nonstandard gender resonance

tricky towers (2016) - the joy of being alive

Monster Hunter, second through fourth gen (2008-2014-) - iterative ritual

bnha (2014-) - the new generation, warped by the old

Furi (2016) - excellence as a habit

zombieland saga (2018-) - this decade's gender is: unalive

The Sea Will Claim Everything (2012) - whimsical, righteous fury

revue starlight (2018) - antisynthesis

decade's top

d[]rk s[]uls, 1 and 2 (2*11, 2*14) - detached slaughter

(matters that did get onto this tumblr, but which I'd like to keep in memory, include posts on Wandersong (2018) and 22+ free sapphic vns / IFs / twines (2013-2018). I wonder how much appreciation there is for all of my prosiac and entangled rambling?...)

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I've been posting way too many words, recently. Depression and life-shifting and all. For the few who follow me here solely, have some old selfies previously kept in more private servers-

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Wandersong (2018) is in a strange position relative to other gamer-mindset satires and other pacifist power-fantasies in that it emphasizes redemption comes with willing change or death. The Hero as apocalyptic status quo gets in a lot of great narrative-breaking (her intermission forces itself in between chapters + is the only time one can attack almost anything at all; the game's achievements are solely from her activities, not the player's; she's offered cooperation and refuses it, sealing her fate alone), and works well entirely separated from the protagonist. Unlike the spent introspection of games that criticize complicity by playing them at all, or splits of arbitrary cruel and non-cruel routes, Wandersong's singular journey lets the player fulfill a pacifist counter-thesis in knitting the world back together against the Hero’s efforts, and that makes the point work a lot better than emphasizing the horror of "but what if we let / made you kill".

(...not that it's perfect here- the cosmological forces themselves don't get much deliverance. still.)

Playing as that protagonist bard does have some unique appeals, of course. While my unskilled ears falter in idle singing, such as a verb is still explored well in communing with the world and protecting people on a constant basis. That they can do many dances 90% of the time without interrupting other actions is far more personally alluring; non-mechanical expression in non-creation works has felt sorely lacking, sometimes. They're also just a loveable innocent dork that gets to process masking / depression and imposter syndrome, lighting up the heart of a disgruntled and focused witch dealing with diaspora and the duo’s struggles to fix things. There’s a lot of emotional catharsis in discussing ambient hopelessness and such personal strife half way through the game, and such snuck into a puzzle-platformer helps make the game’s hopeful intent to stitch the world back together work with more than just magic to solve everything.

(also, the postgame dev commentary about how many qualities of later plot were written on the fly and in subtle response to many other games, and I only played this a year after release included fixes for physics bugs. it feels and was barely held together, but my playthrough gave me hope that writing and trickery can make up for the infinite different specialties small game dev needs to function at all.)

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girlfriends talk

very tangentially spun off a quote on an anime about making friends as a young kid through video games

Besides HSG’s characters, another potentially-controversial aspect is that the show is uncritical of old videogames. This is absolutely true, and something I love about it. It’s the same thing I like about GameCenter CX. I prefer to be critical and analytical but I think everyone is critical of games nowadays. Everyone in a post-AVGN world wants to be critical of games. Everyone in a post-dial-up western world has access to more games than they can play. Taking old games and instead playing the role of the youth who does not have the experience or ability to curate for themselves is inspired because when you’re a kid and a game has a really difficult boss or absurd load times or has an incomprehensible translation, you literally have no reason to suspect that’s unusual. You just assume it’s on purpose (if you’re even at the point where you understand that actual people make these things) and try to understand it. The holes of context are filled in by your imagination, the lack itself becomes meaningful. GCCX and HSG both exist in the innocence of assuming that all things are as they are, and anything that is meaningful to you is a masterpiece, and as such nothing is just dismissed and tossed aside. You could again argue that they obviously aren’t allowed to complain about these because they have to get permission from the companies that published these games to feature them in the first place. And yeah, there’s truth to that. [...] . But I think the lens of innocence has value despite that, and honestly I don’t want cynicism to drain the blood from everything in my life.

(sorry, mobile users.)

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oh

hey

that work about girls who didn't ask to be considered dead by society, who need to wear make-up to be seen as human going out of the house, who overexert themselves until they fall apart as they're expected to, and who struggle with public pools of water as well as standards of sexualization?

it's, it's got some textual form of The Gender. a little perspective from some trans jiangshi on how that turned out:

it's not quite there, which is far better than average, but a fair number of people will still laud Zombieland's already solid mix of absurdity and character pieces and detailwork. it's the representation, you know. it's not going to be ideal, but it's going to help a few more people with just a little more normalization, and in a context like this where bigotry has animated the well into a poison elemental that's kind of nice?

I'm also kinda amazed that anybody would miss this, and I'm reminded of the notion that Nerds won't recognize lesbians unless they both make-out in front of a camera and then stop to assert they're gay. the episode featured fears of puberty, teenager shittily discussing deadnames and a brushing off of the relevance of one's junk, plus an overworked girl disconnected from her grieving dad having a literal heart attack over dysphoria. her casual outfit is literally blue and pink and white, too. of course, the standard for gender here is in a hazy mess of malevolence and alienation and fetishization, so of course people weren't expecting any transness at all. certainly, it's also nice to be able to just exist in a less mundane work, considering that those focused on being acronym are easily disatisfyingly idle (shout outs to the best of those Our Dreams At Dusk, which better get an anime so people stop bringing up bloody Wandering Son).

I don't know what to make about the narrative's actual politics, though. it goes more for sentimentality than making an explicit supportive message beyond the acceptance by one's peers, having Lily forgive her mellowed-out father in a heartfelt song to him while also refusing to explain or return. it'd be nice for a work to assert parents should properly love their fucking daughters and sons before they literally die, after all. on the other detached hand, lily not going back to her father and sticking with a chosen family that accepts her and as she feels most comfortable with (most _alive_ with), regardless of that emphasizing the show's weird status quo, has obvious virtue to it. found families and being allowed to function after leaving one's parentage and so on and so forth. the point of how she's happy with being dead because she avoids amab puberty is stilted too, something also embroiled in the work's central parody conceit. the whole "industry that processes people into product will throw the already-dead on stage and nobody will notice or care" premise, distracted by it ending up becoming idol anime anyways, is definitely using "these girls may get better but they're not allowed to grow up" as another subtle slung knife. still. bring up hormones, or have her get a trans friend who actually goes on those in the second season, damnit.

altogether it's the usual exhausted throwing up of arms at mainstream minority sores poking- it'll help many with another token of support but is nowhere near revolution. lily's a good girl and she gets to enjoy herself in a ridiculous physical comedy about the dead, anyway.

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Visiting my transistor in Newfoundland and practicing daylight glitch-lich girlmode in the rainiest place in the country, or something along those lines.

I'll get back to Content sooner or later.