June Something #5 and #6

[acequeenking]

Day 5: Compare and/or contrast your very first fandom obsession and your very latest fandom obsession.

 
Oh, gosh, Tekken and Hadestown? Hm. They're very different -- one's a fighting game series primarily about dropping relatives off of cliffs, and Hadestown is primarily about the Unrelenting Approach of Capitalism + Climate Change. But there's a few through-lines there that I think highlight my interests: 

- A Supernatural Element:

 

Both of them feature some characters who have powers beyond humanity (the gods/the devils) and characters who don't (the men/everyone else who isn't a Mishima/Kazama). A big bit of catnip for me in both is that the people who aren't gods or godly powered often continue to show up and continue to try to make the world better, even with the Gods/Devils throwing their shit around and seriously fucking up the place. Maybe they can't make everything better, but they can do the one thing they can do, and sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't.

- Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know (because Daddy Never Loved Me)

Kazuya and Hades are both characters with profoundly bad childhoods cursed with far too much power and both rampantly abuse their power and hurt the people around them. Hades is a bit more of a glass cannon than Kazuya - it's clearer that beneath his strutting veneer he is a man who is terrified of losing his wife, but neither of them lose much sleep at making (most? all? of) humanity their pawns. Hades actions are particularly despicable in canon concerning Eurydice, as he's willing to do anything to make his wife look at him again; Kazuya's no less dark, willing to murder most of his family and, honestly, most if not all of the world, simply to attain more power. Oddly, both compare themselves with Satan indirectly.

- Unequal, often tumultuous, cyclical relationships

 In Tekken I am forever fascinated by how Lee Chaolan is in the shadows, but can't quite quit the Mishima family; he tried to walk away, but he can't, and he's caught in this same horrible relationship again and again and again. Hades and Persephone's relationship is more ...complicated, on the power front: it's very clear he calls the shots...and also very, very clear she subverts them. To some extent I think he likes the challenge (he loves his wife being a big big bitch) and to some extent I think he resents it (...why is she being a big big bitch to HIM???). And that push/tug has been in their relationship for thousands of years, because they're gods and their biggest dispute is pretty much unsolvable.

- Big Men in Big Suits With Big, Deep Voices and Big Leather Jackets

Yeah. Okay. ....I have a type. 
 

Day 6: What's a fandom that you wish had a bigger following?

There's too many answers to this question. Hades has a decently-sized fandom but I wish it had a wider exchange fandom. I wish Anastasia, War and Peace//Great Comet of 1812, and Once on This Island had a fandom of any size at all. But I think if I had to pick one fandom that I wish had a bigger fandom, it would really be Rome!

Rome in so many ways feels like it was just a few years too early. In so many ways it feels like it is the proto-GoT. Badass, complex ladies? Check. Sexy sex, being had in many sexy ways by many sexy people and some not-so-sexy? Check and Checkeroni. Violence? Big old check. Politics, both tawdry and relevant to our own lives? Check. Big ass dragons invading Rome? ...Well, not quite a check there, but CGI really wasn't that good in 2002, so in a way I suppose it's a bit of a blessing.

But oh man. It's so good, and one of those rare shows based on real people that isn't so close enough to their real lives for me to really get distracted by thinking about how "realistic" the show is to what we know of their lives. (And, granted, some of that cognitive dissonance is because they've been in fictionalized accounts so long that it is difficult to remember that these were actual people.) But it's also just...got just this perfect balance of being historical enough that you know, roughly, where its going to go, but not necessarily in how it will get there because some events and relationships have been made up out of whole cloth. And while I can see that being a drawback for some, for me it's a draw; I  particularly appreciate some of the queer relationships that were added, especially one between two female main characters which I ship HARD.

The amount of shows out there that have complex, political women of varying morality is disappointingly FEW and there's so MANY of them in Rome. (And the men, of course, are no slouch either, but that's a little bit less extraordinary.) I deeply appreciate how much this show goes out of the way to show women of every rank in Rome from slaves (Eirene, Gaia) to middle-class plebeians (Niobe + her family) and the upper-crust (the Junii and Julii women and, of course, motherfucking CLEOPATRA).

And honestly the male characters also GROW and CHANGE so well through the series. The main two characters - Vorenus and Pullo, both commit pretty horrible acts and pretty good ones, too. Vorenus is possibly THE best version of the "lawfully good character whose lawful goodness causes him awful troubles"; Pullo is the rare wisecracking jackass who is actually a) funny and b) allowed to grow into a more well-rounded character as time goes on. 
 
Very few characters only have one facet, and it's just so well acted and the costumes are so pretty and the sets...my god, the SETS are ridiculous. It's only two seasons, and the first is a bit better than the second (mostly because the second was rushed, due to its cancellation), but it tells a very GOOD story about the Rise and abrupt fall of Julius Ceasar and the slower, longer, weedier rise of Octavian/Augustus. There's points where it shows its age -- Egypt and Judea are both whiter than they should be, in particular, and certainly  a bit whiter than they would be if this was an HBO show filmed today instead of an HBO show filmed in 2001-2002. 

It's almost inevitable to compare it to Game of Thrones; it really feels like it comes from that same well. However, I think it avoids the worst downsides of Game of Thrones: the violence and sexuality here never really feel like they're there just for a shock; each serves its own, often brutal purpose. The plot never really wanders, through it's admittedly harder to do that in a two season series compared to a eight season series.It never really falters and it hits it's finale REALLY strong*. It's a short ride, but an intense ride, and I deeply recommend it to anyone looking for an adult drama.

(*Though if you want an unpopular opinion, I'm one of evidently like five people on the internet who actually liked almost all of Season 8 of GOT.) 

Comments

[sonofgodzilla]

I have long been a fan of Kazuya so this post was wonderful to read. I'm not even very good at fighting games really, but I really love the amount of personality that effortlessly exudes from his design. I don't know, maybe I have also spent a considerable amount of time comparing myself to Satan indirectly so it's easy to have sympathy here. :p

[acequeenking]

KAZUYA STANS FOREVER!!!! Every day I find you are more a person of wealth and taste. <3

1) I am absolutely rubbish at Tekken, and with Kazuya in particular. He requires a deft, expert hand to play well, and I have the unskilled hand of a rather drunk lummox. BUT I will never let that stop me from trying.

2) You're right, he has style in spades. I LOVE LOVE LOVE his character design and how they've stuck with him having this sort of...Yakuza/mobster vibe? I also love how his design is so unrepentantly masculine, but they're not afraid to make him flirt with really feminine colors (that pink Yakuza outfit in T6! The baby blue coat illustration in T7 with the gun! the very famous T2-forever purple smoking jacket!). And then Lee really has that feminine style as a damn art form...

(Honestly, sidenote but hot damn someone should do a deep dive on fighting games and gender expression because I don't have the background for that but I feel like honestly one could have a FIELD DAY on gender expression expressed in fighting game fashion. There's these outliers like Darkstalkers' Morrigan and SF's Poison who are confirmed lgbt+, and non-binary characters like SS' Yumeji Kurokuchi and Tekken's Leo, aand then there's also a LOT of non-gender conforming characters like KOF's Benimaru or other sub-text heavy characters like Lee Chaolan and SF's Zangeif and AOF/KOF's King and GG's Bridget...)

3) Plus the way he's such an inversion/contrast to Ryu!!! I love it. I could write an entire essay on how the original Tekken was basically a rejection of the 80s clean-cut action hero style in earlier versions of fighting games and instead running a very unique path. And honestly, Tekken's story? Underrated! UNDERRATED! There's so much GOOD STORY STUFF IN THERE. Demonic possession - willing and uunwilling! Body Horror! FAMILY TRAUMA! (SO MUCH. SO MUCH FAMILY TRAUMA.) DYSTOPIAS! (Corporate dystopias.) Boxing....Kangeroos?! (AND dinosaurs.) They don't always put much effort into it but it's got this great storyline...goo, like the Toku stuff, where it's ABSOLUTELY BONKERS but also a coherent worldview???

Also I'm sorry, it's late, and I'm nattering, but I also think he's a character that I LOVED as a kid in part because he just...falls into this almost Disney-villain level of evil? He's got understandable backstory, but dammit, he's having FUN in his evil. He SMILES in his villainy! And he's the main character and he's a villain. And it's great! He's endlessly entertaining.

[starstar]

Don't forget Kazuya's 2P crop jacket with a little devil on the back in T2! Also, as shown by Blood Vengeance, he appreciates a good manicure.

[acequeenking]

(I really need to make more tekken icons if I'm going to evidently fall right back into it the second we start talking about it.)

God that T2 outfit was such GOOD mid-to-late 90s club-wear wasn't it? The MESH shirt? The big stomping Doc Martin boots with the metal rivets (fashion forward detail)? That tiny devil on the back? (Kills me, to this very day it kills me.)

Honestly the funniest thing to me is going back in the mid 2000s and going "Oh god, that Tekken 2 outfit is SO dated" and now almost everything in Tekken 2 has come back into style...

[sonofgodzilla]

Every day I find you are more a person of wealth and taste.

How can you keep a straight face saying that after you've seen all the nonsense Kamen Rider fic I post, hahah.

1.) I love your description and relate to it deeply. i've always adored fighting games, just never been good at them. Just looking up from where I sit I can see copies of Project Justice, Soul Calibur, Capcom vs SNK and more. I love how over-the-top and colourful they are. I'm even a massive SNK Heroines apologist which I am sure is one of the many reasons I will one day be cancelled.

2.) Agreed! Absolutely! I don't like the circumstances of how Poison and Roxy came to be depicted as they are, but I'm all about taking ownership of that and making them ours. And Kazuya's wardrobe is just amazing, everything about him is amazing. I have a soft spot for that type of guy, the toothpick chewing, calculating, easy to anger guy, and just because you throw your son off a cliff, it doesn't mean you're bad bad, right? Just, ah, highly focused. :p

3.) Oh, you're so right! Like it's nuts, but it never for a moment does not take itself seriously, and that's where I think it works; even when Kazuya is being tossed out of an airlock with his son by his own father, it still works, and everyone acts appropriately considering the situation they are in. Ah, it's great.

(Stupidly, some of my favourite interactions are in a non-fighting game, Namco x Capcom, but that's a whole different kettle of fish.)

Ah, it's such a joy to talk about this stuff!

Also: please now write fic about Kazuya and Mr Karate from SNK drinking in bars and comparing notes, lol.