#talking that ish

[ohsnapitzlovehacker]

Trying to transition back into Tumblr life and fully prepared for this post to tell on me later but if you take the BDSM plot line feature whatever from the cursed heart, I'm really liking the book???? I've been watching playthroughs (can't decide on a MC/LI pair lol) but it gives me mature The Cruel Prince series meets Malice duology by Heather Walter BOTH of which I adore. So.

[ohsnapitzlovehacker]

They could have made a new sprite or used one of a less used side character but we got rebranded Martin from #Lovehacks and like, how else are we supposed to understand that the guy’s an asshole by a different name 😂

[ohsnapitzlovehacker]

Pain is stumbling across your old Hero fanfic and remembering there’s no book 2 and sobbing into a pillow because you’ll never know how it was supposed to end

[ohsnapitzlovehacker]

Just finished HSSCA series for the 287535th time and reminded of why I’m making my own game.

Like…I need more coming of age games.

I need that ish injected directly into my veins, real talk?!?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m surely will not give up my smut and mature topics and any of the tomfoolery that is surely not safe for work…but I need to see kids and teens being kids and teens.

Being safe and loved and goofy and making mistakes and feeling ALL the feels and being excited for everything and nothing, and falling in love and out of it (or having that one friend or multiple close friends who are they’re ride-or-dies/family)

I didn’t have a point for this post, so here we are

[ohsnapitzlovehacker]

First of all if you haven’t been reading @lizzybeth1986 ‘s newest series, what are you doing?? Secondly, I went overboard in my commentary and notes (oops) so all of this is in direct response of the essay: China, Cordonia and "Home".

This is just a copy/paste live-blog of what I feverishly typed in an attempt not to forget what I wanted to say after I finished reading. Spoiler alert, I had TOO MUCH TO SAY 😭

<<read more in place for your scrolling ease>>

Probs not intentional but it really feels like the writers set Hana up to fail, my Godddds

In every other place where Hana could have mentioned where she came from, they made her use terms like "home" or "where I come from". An example of this is the conversation at the ruins in Ch. 13, where Hana can say, "I've visited ruins around where I'm from, and they're just as beautiful as these".

I always thought there was a plot reason they never gave a specific origin of country for Hana way back when, but it never crossed my mind that the writers just didn’t know themselves 😑

Keeping that in mind, let's look at how Shanghai itself is written. Unlike Italy and NY which got 3 chapters each, Shanghai had only 2. But it's still possible that in those 2 chapters we'd have plenty of background material about Hana, right? Right??

obviously can’t speak for the current employee demographics at Pixelberry as it’s been since 2018(??) since I kept close and excited tabs on the writers, and said writers have been laid off or quit, but I believe at the time of TRR 1-2, there was a sizable amount of writers who identified as Asian and so it boggles my mind that when it comes to some of their Asian characters—hell, Asian love interests!!—that they wouldn’t put in the extra research and care to give these plots and characters more depth and substance. Like hello??? BIPOC representation still needs work but you’re a whole ass game company who prides yourself in your diversity and inclusivity and you couldn’t create that needed representation?? HelfreakinLO??

Gonna keep jabbering to myself because I’m thinking and reading and the MC design they picked to be on the cover of the TRR books is the East Asian design so obviously they’d cared enough for visibility reasons for that but still…

<<a new line of thought>>

In reference to the Shanghai cuisine section, this is a gross simplification of what Lizzy carefully explained (brain go burrr) but all I could think was “dang, Hana has some disrespectful AF friends?!?” Like I don’t care for cannon Drake and MC has slowly appeared on my would-like-to-kick list, but the sloppily written narrative makes me laugh and wonder how Hana doesn’t go ape shit around this group of so called friends. Because wow.

Tea Service (free): China is known for its tea culture and esp its tea houses, that are often hubs for political and cultural discussions.

any and all links in this meta series I have clicked and interacted with but I just wanted to note this section because gong fu cha is a new-to-me concept and I want to know more so YAY LEARNING

Shanghai should have been treated differently. This was Hana's home. This was the place she likely spent all of her childhood and most of her young adult life growing up in. What we should have been seeing was her house, her childhood haunts, places that made her feel safe and happy. Folk tales she grew up on, local traditions she may have participated in (I mean, isn't this stop at the tour during the time of a festival?). And if for some nonsensical reason the writers wanted to alienate her from her own city, don't brush that aside like it means nothing

tell me you can’t write your female LI without telling me you can’t write your female LI 🤷🏾‍♀️

<<not sure what this was in direct reference too but I’d like to note that a few minutes after fuming to myself and reading some more, this exact note was addressed in the essay ASGSGDHD>>

Asian culture is not a monolith like wyd???

This is hardly the only indication of Hana having her Chinese heritage erased. In TRH, almost no mentions are made of her home city or home country. In Book 1 there is a heavy focus, again, on the European-influenced skills she grew up learning like horseriding and dainty tea parties.

it’s the missed opportunities at every turn for me. TRR’s popularity aside from everyone’s favorite trope (mine too) of commoner x royalty, this series could have been a force to be reckoned with and instead we have retconning and repeated character assignations and plot holes galore and the centering of men and white (female) fragility that serves no purpose except maybe to appease the reader fanbase, and it’s all such a waste and I hate it here 😭

For a person whose story was not only about self-discovery but also finding a sense of belonging, not meeting that need in her "single" playthrough is an awful reminder that nothing in Hana's story is written with her in mind.

funny how we have like a8 billion whole books spanning the TRR universe with PLENTY of opportunities to explore and expand upon Hana as a person and not an afterthought and it’s been squandered. Go on PB, give us nothing 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

A possible argument for the latter situation at least...is that the team may not have known enough about China or Shanghai, and may have been reluctant to step on the toes of people who did. In which case, why choose a country you don't know, and don't want to do proper research for? Because calling a city that's capable of moving entire buildings with the help of robot walkers, isn't one that anybody in their right mind would call "ancient".

nothing to add, just wanna scream YES in solidarity because these were my thoughts. Like…yeah, I have nothing to add. This speaks for itself.

[ohsnapitzlovehacker]

…I am ONCE again ask— nah not asking, demanding y’all edit people to stop putting the male minor aged characters on the bodies of suggestive CGs/character models/whatever

It’s not cute, and if you don’t see the problem with it, I’m not gonna be the one to explain

[ohsnapitzlovehacker]

To Do (immediate future)

- RODAW read + reblogs

- Lizzybeth’s TRR meta posts

- ramble about TF series (currently replaying The Senior and having ALL of the feels 😭)

- prep for TRM appreciation week + replay (might sub a month for the unlimited keys..?)

[ohsnapitzlovehacker]

I just spent basically my whole day off dealing with my visual novel + related social media-ing and life errands…I will return to the rodaw festivities this weekend as a treat