#tornio

coming late to the parade as always. this is pure vent, i'm not even gonna reread this.

i sometimes hate myself for the surge of motivations that capture my mind and take it hostage until i exhaust them. this time was MHA; i saw the clips of the epilogue, and the surge of togachako ship content and i HAD to know the context. i stopped years ago at the third/fourth season, so i HAD to rewatch everything. in two weeks.

ok, now i'm free again, decompressing phase.

not gonna talk about the series as whole, though i could. I just want to express my frustration about Uraraka and Toga's characterization.

they are beautiful. that last episode with them hit me like a truck, and i now have aquired a new "cry on command" button if i need it. Problem is, that episode is built on the flimsiest foundation i've ever seen.

the times these two interacted are but a footnote to the entire story, and they are scattered far throughout the 8 SEASON + OVAS + MOVIES!!! That single episode managed to gaslight me and millions of others of a preexisting deep bond and rivalry between the two, that is completely believable and supremely compelling on paper, but then you go search for it back in the series and rediscover that up until that episode it had barely started/materialized as one.

i am overall satisfied with this series, i think it is a good hero story with super compelling characters, but this one thing will sting me forever. Uraraka deserved to be a protagonist alongside bakugo, deku and shoto. Fucking obliterate mineta from the face of the earth and give all of his screentime to her, and also i could've used less epic moments given to classmates that i barely care about if it could've meant more ochako and her story.

Not only the story, but also her hero moveset. I very much think she should've been more of a brawler, with her training for close combat fight (and maybe becoming a little more buff, why not), mostly because it would've led to a lot of really cool coreography; remove gravity and then hit and make opponent fly through the air. yeah, yeah, she is way more focused on defense, redirection and protection, but this could've served that purpose too. of course she would'nt rush into battles like deku or bakugo, but would've been interesting to see her as a brawler protector, fending off attackers from innocent bystanders. we get close to that in the first seasons, with her at the tournament and later training with gunhead, but then...it stops there. supremely disappointing.

Plus the fact that we get so little focus on her costumes and gadgets, while she benefits from them much more then deku, at least in a more interesting way. Like, yeah, of course support item are important for deku too, but it's always "i can't use my powers without exploding, but with this item i can", it's always just a crutch or a dampener. uraraka instead would need something a little more creative, like we see with her suddenly having a grappling hook and air boosts at some point.

in regard to her story and romance with Toga, i honestly think that the whole provisional license exam could've been scrapped in favour of a season dedicated to UA class schoolwork and sheenanigans, in which the league would've sent toga in UA in disguise; now, THAT would have created a lot of moments for her to meet and bond with both Izuku and Uraraka. Beacuse i'm sorry, no matter how much i love that episode, and no matter how much i can believe of Uraraka's deep and intense empathy, her longing to toga, talking about how she misinterpreted the signals that toga's "kept sending her" (when? only that one time when they were in the house alone maybe) and that she has always wanted to tell her about how special her smile was...all of that cannot develop out of the handful of encounters they had in the series. it just cannot.

Overall, despite me liking this series, now i can only imagine one in which my poor girl got some development, especially when looking at the whole todoroki family arc (which i loved, mind you. but if you managed to craft all of that while going forward with the main story, you could've spared some development for Uraraka too).

dunno if fixit fics will do the trick, i am very difficult to please with this things, i'll probably just seethe in my frustration, consuming every piece of togachako fanart like a rabid animal until i move forward.

....Well, hello there. my time to shine i guess. Nobody is gonna read this, i do not matter in this discussion, especially considering that the discussion is happening mainly on youtube and twitter. BUT. for those that might.

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Skittybitty has released a new video discussing the greudo and orientalism, which i highly recommend. And then the opinionated nation attacked.

Now is a matter of censorship, politics in my fantasy videogame, "they're not real bro", and "if you're thinking about it this hard, you're the real racist/sexist/pervert". all that fun stuff.

Now, my intention is not really to touch all of that. i want to go to the root of another problem, one that is really at the foundation (in my opinion) of why some people find the Gerudo so problematic, while others think of them like any other fantasy race/species with no strings attached.

....Are the Gerudo hylians (humans) or are they a different species??? (from now own i'l say humans to indicate all the humanoid creatures that i think belong to the same species, like hylians and sheika).

That for me is the fundamental question that everyone that wants to engage in this discourse should answer first.

Skitty at some point in the video makes her stance clear, though with a tone that implies "obviously they're humans", a security that i personally do not share. To me it's not obvious, it's choice of interpretation that one makes based upon a loose set of lore details even nintendo is unsure what to do with it (i think. i do not remember any esplicit confirmation in the games, but i might be wrong). Why is not obvious? mainly due to:

how they are portrayed in botw/totk,

for the all-women quirk

because sheika exist.

Them being only women is the principal issue: it's clear that no thought was given to it and that it was adapted and reinterpretated later on, but with an hollow fundation. You can make the case of the gerudo being just a different ethinicity of humans as long as you don't factor in how they reproduce, at which point nothing makes sense anymore. You can reason about it with the faint implication of them being a cursed tribe, but they still act more as a separate group of people that thrives on its own, plus it's not how they are presented later on. If they are another species, this is their distinctive trait and you can work around it, if they are humans, this just makes no sense (as it is presented. i'm not saying that an all-women culture cannot exists, just that it's NOT presented as culture/tradition, but as a natural trait).

In botw/totk they are clearly different from humans in how they are portrayed. They always tower over other humans, they are always built differently, and their faces are always angular in a way that no human has. You could make the case that they might just be different looking humans; even in real life there are group of people much taller than anyone else, with uncommon (for some) facial features and colors. Problem is, there is a somewhat wide variety of humans in the games, with colored skintones and varied facial features, but they still are all clearly differentiated from gerudo, so this is an intentional choice, separating the two.

Then the sheika: by the way they are presented, they are functionally humans; they all look the same as hylians and their nature is seemingly the same. Only thing that changes is hair and eye color. With no other info on them, and judging by how the game proposes them to us, they are humans. Gerudo and sheika on paper should have a similar presentation in the world, but it's not the case, because one group is seen as an ethinicity, while the other is seen as a species.

That is why i think it's more of a choice of intepretation. Gerudo should be humans, it would only make sense, but it gets awkward and confusing the more you try to define them as that.

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Now, why do i think this matters more than talking about tropes and stereotypes first; after all an offensive caricature can be offensive regardless of its nature. Mostly to build a good fundation for talking about solutions, to properly discuss how to change them and to better explain it to those that do not get it.

People that view them as a different species won't view them as humans, they only see the cool design and the distinguishing traits. Hylians = generic humans (ears don't count, they are human enough). Sheika = generic humans with cool aesthetic. Gerudo = fantasy race.

So their line of reasoning would probably be more like: "of course it doesen't represent real people. it's like dwarves. do you see celitc and scottish people being offended by dwarves? Then why should middle-eastern people be offended by them". (to be clear, i do not agree with this, but i think this is the wall against which we are throwing ourselves in discussing this).

All this while those who see them as humans and not a different species immediately feel the ick at seeing a group of colored people be reduced to a monolitic culture in the "land of the unfamiliar". The problem here is that they want to immediatly fix them by portraying them as an accurate human ethnicity without changing the fundamental natural traits that make them not humans.

And thus the clash of heads ensues.

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My personal recommendation, by the authority of wanting to make a full redesign project of the gerudo and twili people while never actually working on that because i'm unfocused as hell (jokes aside, i have no degree nor studies in this matter, this is all a long articulated gut feeling), is to choose what you want them to be before proposing a redesign.

If you want them to be humans, get rid of their unhuman traits, and focus more on culture rather than physical difference.

If you want them to be a fully separate species, then make them more unhuman, with a fully different kind of culture that represent their unique traits somehow.

My personal preference goes more towards different species, simpli because i like the different natural traits, but heavily dislike how they are explained and presented.

...Ok, no, i have another thing that came to mind after watching a streamer i follow reaching the central part of the citadel, after the mechanical duo fight.

There you have the three musical statues talk to what they assumed would be a pilgrim, asking them to go and hear the three songs of the greats and come back to ascend.

ok, so...

...What is the POINT of the Pilgrimage actually???

Like, i can fully buy that the bugs believe the citadel to be holy and that they would ascend by arriving there, becoming more than bug. But in here we see a structured, planned arrival point of pilgrims; they made an automated system to direct pilgrims to the cradle.

For what???

Another small think i thought about again (consider this an addition to the previous rant post): the silk. As i have understood it, GMS is the primal source of silk, and so bugs werent able to produce silk, she gifts her ability to them, the weavers. at least, if we consider the upper part of the journal an omniscient narrator. If this is the case, i don´t like this as well.

having the ability to produce silk be tied exclusively to one creature in my mind really narrows down your world by one property many bugs should have. sure, it is special even in our world, but its still incredibly varied and not of exclusive possesion of arachnids. not only that, but spiders here only have it because it was gifted, so it´s another defining characteristics being cut away from them, to add to my previous critique.

...At this point what even are arachnids in this world? they are basically defined only by hunting style and goblin noises.

I personally choose to interpret the journal as two entries from hornet, one more personal that the other, and so this is her understanding of silk and its origin; this way i am able to imagine are types of arachnids roaming in the world, and caterpillars making their own silk. Not only that, but i also prefere to believe GMS did NOT gift the ability to them, merely enhanced it; they naturally are able to produce silk, but only with GMS´s help they were able to weave their sould into it.

I know this is entirely an headcanon, given that the game seems pretty explicit about it all, but...

!!!!SPOILERS BEWARE!!!!! ....So, Silksong. i need to say some stuff. First of all: shocker, i loved it. an amazing experience that i will cherish for a long time, more than HK i think (it may be the post game excitement talking, but i really feel i liked it way more than HK). Hornet, the story, the world, the gameplay, THE MUSIC. everything flows together so beautifully.

...but

as most things, i think there are some critical aspects that i think needed some more thought, that left me either confused or disappointed. 3,5 to be exact, as the title suggests. And no, it’s not going to be about the runbacks, or the double damage. If you’ve had trouble with that, go listen to Hornet’s voicelines in Hollow Knight, i think she might have something to say to you personally. So, to vent them in order, here's all of what i have to say in image form because my ramblings are too long for tumblr's post size as it turns out.