Here’s what I really want to say as a goodbye to Twitter, not yesterday, ranting with steam and fear because of my anger at Elon Musk’s continuous flirtations with fascism and blatant insanity and my mistrust of myself. The fact is, I have never known in the last three years if I had a healthy fan relationship with Tara Platt and Abby Trott or not. 13 years ago, I broke my Mom’s downstairs wall because I was fed up with the Mariners losing and trading away Cliff Lee, the press roasting Miley Cyrus at every opportunity and the issues Billy Ray Cyrus brought up in his album at the time, “Brother Clyde.” I get that way around things and it isn’t okay. I haven’t physically broken anything irreplaceable, just some soda cans and other things I was throwing out, but I honestly wish I had a big punching bag sometimes for the fascism and naiveté on the internet. I honestly feel Legendary is disrespecting Godzilla by saddling him with Kong this much, and not Rodan, Anguirus, Mothra or Behemoth, I think there should be more art of Annette supporting Edelgard and Byleth, as well as more Edeleth art in general, I think there is too little art and positive opinions expressed online respecting Edelgard/Mitsuru/Tara Platt in general, Erza Scarlet, Roman Reigns, Bayley, Yang and Blake as a couple, the Seattle Mariners, any action movie released in the last 20 years that didn’t have Marvel making it or wasn’t Pirates of the Caribbean and any new musician in the last 31 years who is not Taylor Swift. I feel a ton of nationalism, white supremacist thinking, fascism masquerading as Christianity by claiming close-minded, aggressive, sometimes genocidal monsters bear the light, antisemitism, racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, and I don’t even have to leave my apartment complex to notice it.
It was undoubtedly worse from 2016 to 2021 around my parts, during which I coped with things like Godzilla; King of the Monsters, Kong; Skull Island, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Pacific Rim 1 and 2, the 2018 Tomb Raider movie, Miley Cyrus, Judas Priest, archival Soundgarden recordings, Whitesnake, Sammy Hagar and the Circle, Black Country Communion, Billy Ray Cyrus, Noah Cyrus, Guns N Roses, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Blazblue Crosstag Battle and especially, Fire Emblem; Three Houses. Tara Platt’s calming voice as Edelgard was important to me since I had already heard it as Mitsuru in Persona 3 and most of its spinoffs (among them, Blazblue Crosstag Battle) and made me feel special and cared about during the worst heights of the pandemic. DeviantArt was crazy about Annette, so after beating it once, I wondered about playing it again to see where she fit in the Black Eagles’ picture, after all, Lysithea, Leonie, Manuela and Shamir all had conversations with people in the house, why wouldn’t Annette? Plus, Abby Trott, who voiced the character, was a delight online, slightly obsessed with Larvitars and later taking hilarious selfies. Tara and Abby ending up on a project called “New Wave” gave me the excuse I was looking for; I could suggest backing the project while playing the game. This was popular on Twitter, especially with Abby and Tara themselves, but DeviantArt had taken a turn for being more naive and what I could only describe as “psychotic”/”psychotically misogynistic.” It’s honestly hard to tell, with the site’s emphasis on kinks, if this inhumane abuse was “punishing bad people” or “punishing bad women harsher than men because they must be willing to make my babies without complaint because I am male.” The site also became a habitat for laziness and memes, a far cry from the well-made photoshop creations. It’s no surprise that plagiarism software now provides most of the content.
Though “New Wave” fell through, Annette became my second-favorite character to spend time with who wasn’t Edelgard, days off frequently had lunch with the two of them, a tea party each and choir practice with them both together. Annette was usually towards the front line as an efficient spellcaster and healer. On hard days, I often want to go back to the simplicity of those moments with Tara Platt’s calm voice and Abby Trott’s “Yeah, you got this!” attitude, which led to quite a few purchases over the years. None have been regretted, I like hearing Tara alongside longtime favorite voice and Critical Role star Laura Bailey in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Abby brings fierce and adorable together well as Nezuko in Demon Slayer, Sarah McKnight’s “Life Support” audiobook with Tara as Rosie helped me re-examine my High School experiences and be thankful for those who helped it turn out right and Temari (another Tara character) is another great anime fighting game woman that is a joy to play as. I haven’t even played as Noel Seeker much, but it’s another good side for Abby, a more mature side that rides motorcycles and wields a rocket launcher. Of course, the returns of Edelgard in Three Hopes and Engage were enjoyed, especially Edelgard’s relationships with Yunaka, Panette and Madeline in Engage.
Then why leave Twitter? Several reasons, sadly. I have powerful anxiety, crushing, debilitating, scary. This doesn’t work well with Elon Musk being a crazy person. Heck, I will post on things that are important to me and recoil in fear at home, even taking naps because I can’t deal with the fear that someone, somewhere is going to reply like a deranged psychopath. I first got on Godzilla fan forums around 20 years ago and even then, people were threatening violence upon film staff and users who didn’t agree with their narrow-minded opinions. I freely acknowledge I have been no better, at least inside my head, if not in action, hard to keep track of all that I’ve done online. But, that’s the problem right there. When we are only typing to a small paragraph, we don’t think “can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.” We think something more like “I’m going to teach this son of a female dog a lesson by beating him upside the head!” And I was worried back then it was going to bleed out into our real world, our real discourse…and it did. Now, I don’t know how to interpret conversations from the other political party as anything other than them preparing to “beat some sense into some ‘lib-tards’” as they would say. This makes the online world worse, because now we are so informed of the psychosis in the real world we are paralyzed into inaction, especially because we lack the money and resources to make a meaningful, noticeable impact on this insanity. Is $10 to an international soup kitchen going to end the war in Ukraine? Is buying Persona 3 Portable going to end the problems SAG and the WGA face? Is only buying Miley Cyrus, Geoff Tate, Brandi Carlile, Vicky Beeching and old Soundgarden and Beatles music going to empower the Democrats to beat fascism? I’ve been doing such things for years, and it’s still the same old miserable news story.
I’ve also been afraid I’ve been hurting Tara and Abby with this attention I’ve been giving them. I’m not sure, especially since Tara liked my post of the Pop I bought because I think it looks like her, but they’ve been the only real thing I feel at my back in the insanity of Twitter. I do believe in God, but there are just too many times fear makes Him feel distant, and Politicians and Homophobes abusing His name adds to that space between my mind and His presence. Their calm and joy helped me push the nonsense down. I don’t even know if they’re going away, and there’s others I love there like Erika Harlacher and her Cavalier Spaniel and Among Us insanity, Xanthe Huynh, who never fails to like you complimenting her, Ratana, who always starts each day saying “Make Today Amazing,” Sarah McKnight and her cats and her strength and creativity, Colleen Clinkenbeard, who sometimes replies to me when I mention her, and Laura Post, who I enjoy because she’s played Melony in Pokémon and Yunaka, in really different ranges, but that seems to sum up who she seems to be, like how Tara has Edelgard’s refusal to stand political garbage, Elizabeth’s humor and Kali’s maternal kindness and Abby, like Annette, is a bundle of joy. But, right now, Twitter carries more uncertainty, anger and sadness than they can lift me out of as things are going now; I’ve actually said “I want to die, please, someone kill me” while on the website in the last month. I actually tried that once in High School. I never want to try it again.
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