Snowflake Challenge 2023, Day 12
Jan. 24th, 2024 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
22degreehaloI'm still working on Day 9!!! It is extremely long!!!! Just you wait!!!!!!!
So, this comes in two parts: the thing that I planned to talk about and the thing that just happened, hahaha.
Thing that just happened: a couple days ago, I saw on tumblr a post chastising people for making a particular assumption about Japanese culture. Late at night, but pretty certain of myself, I said that I had good reason to believe that the assumption was indeed correct and that maybe widespread belief of this was actually just true. Today, they responded back with a long post saying that I was wrong, with a lot of information.
These sorts of situations are something like my absolute personal hell, hahahahahahaha. Like, someone personally responding back to a thing I posted is already enough to make me anxious, even when it's entirely positive. (So... sorry to anybody whose comments here I still haven't responded to!!! I promise I'm sincerely happy to have gotten them!!!!) But that it's so long? And I was WRONG?!?!? Meaning I did a BAD THING and sent out BAD INFORMATION into the world as a result of my TERRIBLE CRUEL SELFISH PRIVILEGED ASSUMPTIONS?????
I intended to just not look at the reply and assume that I was probably just wrong and move on with my life (if anxiously). Maybe search for the real answer elsewhere.
BUT, spurned on by ADHD medication I still somehow am not entirely used to using over a year later, I actually opened it!!!!!! And skimmed it!!!!!!! And wrote a reply, apologising, admitting they seemed to be right, explaining why I'd come to my conclusion, and explaining I'd be too anxious to ever write a proper, in-depth response!!!!!!!!!!
I'm not even gonna be coy here and say that I'm doing the bare minimum or whatever, that shit is fucking Terrifying to me (for reference, I literally just don't check my reddit mail. ever. if I want to see if someone's responded to a comment I make there I'll go back to it myself and slowwwwly scroll down to try and check my karma first) and I'm trying so fucking hard to reward my improvements here by feeling proud and allowing myself to cathartically release my anxiety.
Okay!! Now time for the full positive!!!!!:
I am very, very close to obtaining every single Kanzaki Souma card available in Ensemble Stars! basic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you're not familiar: Ensemble Stars! is a gacha game that began in 2015, revolving around high school boys (and, later, some graduates as well) who are also school idol singers. Yes it's a very cliche, anime-ish premise, but the real draw of the game wasn't so much the gameplay (very simple, though there is a rhythm version available now) but the writing: there are a huge number of characters, all with their own unique quirks and histories, and they are intensely inter-related: I've never encountered such a shipping-friendly canon before!! And the first game in particular actually has a surprisingly dark story: it takes place a year after ~The War~, a terrible sequence of events in which a few of the characters tried to save the school by sacrificing some of their other classmates and in doing so, as the fandom so often jokes, gave basically everyone there some form of PTSD.
I started playing in mid 2018, but I didn't really get into it until early 2019. At that point it was only available in Japanese (now there's an English version of the rhythm game available, but it's still pretty new!), and I started in part to practice and develop my own Japanese, but I soon fell head over heels for one Kanzaki Souma. He's so embarrassingly my type in appearance and themes: a noble, long-ponytailed samurai who is earnest and rule-abiding but incredibly naive and too loyal for his own good; a veritable ray of sunshine with an anachronistically old-fashioned accent and sword to boot, a weirdo who sincerely believes in all that is good, even when it is very much opposed to his own best interests. But he captured my attention even further because of his backstory, which has him situated on one of the 'bad' units aligned with the Student Council, which leaves him an accessory in the sabotage of innocent people - including his beloved sempai, the carefree captain of the Marine Bio Club, Kanata.
Look - I could ramble forever about how much I love him (and he and Kanata together; would you believe they go on to depict Shinto worship themes?! Like this ship was written specifically for me and my id?!?), but back in the early days, I felt... pretty much alone. The English fandom was very small, and Souma was one of the least popular characters. What little content there was for him overwhelmingly just treated him as the comic sidekick to the most 'interesting' characters, with none of the angst or reflection I desperately wanted for him.
So, I did it myself. I sent my headcanons out into the world, delighted when they got one or two likes. I poured myself back into Japanese so I could translate his birthday messages and other such short texts myself. I wrote fanfiction after fanfiction - more than for any other fandom ever, for me! - and filled up the Kanata/Souma AO3 tag almost single-handedly; for three years, I was the only person to post in there, or ever really comment on them.
But over the years, that changed. I met someone who shared my headcanons, and we went on to have extensive conversations together through twitter or DM, not just about Souma (though he is the most important thing!) but also about ourselves. The fandom grew, and numbers on my Souma tweets went slowly further up, until it didn't just feel like me: there was a whole fandom of Souma enthusiasts making things, sharing their ideas, and expressing their love for this silly anime boy!!
And, in all that, I realised that I had become somewhat Known, among few: The Souma Person. The one who desperately, endlessly loves him.
I'm not quite as active in the fandom anymore, now; for so long I felt this strange pressure to be there for him even if nobody else was, like he was my personal charge. Now, I feel like he's in good hands, with people who will love and create for him just like I did! (Certainly, when it comes to translations, there are people much better than me out there... :'D) But I still play the game: the simplicity of it makes it perfect for just doing something with my hands while I do other things, and I feel a real pride looking over my album of obtained cards and costumes!
And soon, my ultimate goal - one I have been working at ever since I first decided to become a SoumaP, way back in 2019 - is finally coming to a conclusion.
Getting Souma's cards as they come out isn't too bad. I'm strangely unmotivated to pull for anyone else (except maybe Kanata, his sempai slash captain slash God slash victim slash husband <3), and seeing that dia count slowly tick up gives me a sense of productivity and fulfilment. I don't insist on getting the cards as soon as they arrive; if I run out of dia, I save up for a rerun. (Which is why I've spent very little on this gacha game over the years. Buying currency just doesn't feel satisfying; there's no pride in showing off that I'm an adult with a disposable income. I want to show that I've worked for Souma, slowly, over time.) I don't go for his SCRs, either; getting three copies of a gacha card is just too unpredictable. (Though I did get the SCR of one of his limited cards recently, because it's easier and I felt like I had enough!) I do max out all of his event cards, but that's 90% about stamina over resources, anyway.
The big obstruction was his older event cards, that came out before I started playing or got serious. Initially I had to do a revival event, which I planned out stressfully, and through that slowly got most of the easier ones and one very much not easy one. But out of nowhere the system changed so that you instead get coins from playing normal events which are exchanged for older event cards. That was worse at first because I just couldn't find as much motivation playing other characters' events, but over time they did build up, and a couple weeks ago I finally obtained my last Souma 5* card.
Now, all I have left are some of the old 3*s: low-rarity cards requiring very small number of coins. Even then, it's going quicker than expected, given that in November we had a Keito event (got 3 copies to try and Finally SS rank the Akatsuki stage so I can get Souma's A+ ranking; still hasn't happened :'D), and right now we have a Kanata event (getting 3 copies just because I like Kanata :) ), so now it's coming up very quickly.
It'll be amazing to finally see it done!! I plan to make a whole big post to the subreddit looking back on it all - the triumphs, the tears, the time I got a limited card on extremely low rate up like some Shinto god of fortune wished me to someday achieve my goal! <3 I'm not entirely sure what I'll do when I'm done; there's still some Kanata cards I'd like to get, and obviously I intend to keep playing for any new Souma cards, though he sorta got ahead of the line last year so he probably won't get a new 5* any time soon.
I'm not usually the sort of person to play video games to completion; my fandom activity is usually more in fanfic and analysis than any engagement with canon directly. But somehow, Ensemble Stars! just worked for me. Souma came into my life at the exact time I was desperate for a purpose, and after some early fears that I'd grow out of him when I moved on to newer fandoms, I really think now that I'll carry him with me forever. In this grand, wide old world that we live in, Kanzaki Souma is but a very small part - but I think I can sensibly say that he is MINE. And I will always, always be grateful for that. <3
Challenge #12
Tell Us about a Personal Win.
So, this comes in two parts: the thing that I planned to talk about and the thing that just happened, hahaha.
Thing that just happened: a couple days ago, I saw on tumblr a post chastising people for making a particular assumption about Japanese culture. Late at night, but pretty certain of myself, I said that I had good reason to believe that the assumption was indeed correct and that maybe widespread belief of this was actually just true. Today, they responded back with a long post saying that I was wrong, with a lot of information.
These sorts of situations are something like my absolute personal hell, hahahahahahaha. Like, someone personally responding back to a thing I posted is already enough to make me anxious, even when it's entirely positive. (So... sorry to anybody whose comments here I still haven't responded to!!! I promise I'm sincerely happy to have gotten them!!!!) But that it's so long? And I was WRONG?!?!? Meaning I did a BAD THING and sent out BAD INFORMATION into the world as a result of my TERRIBLE CRUEL SELFISH PRIVILEGED ASSUMPTIONS?????
I intended to just not look at the reply and assume that I was probably just wrong and move on with my life (if anxiously). Maybe search for the real answer elsewhere.
BUT, spurned on by ADHD medication I still somehow am not entirely used to using over a year later, I actually opened it!!!!!! And skimmed it!!!!!!! And wrote a reply, apologising, admitting they seemed to be right, explaining why I'd come to my conclusion, and explaining I'd be too anxious to ever write a proper, in-depth response!!!!!!!!!!
I'm not even gonna be coy here and say that I'm doing the bare minimum or whatever, that shit is fucking Terrifying to me (for reference, I literally just don't check my reddit mail. ever. if I want to see if someone's responded to a comment I make there I'll go back to it myself and slowwwwly scroll down to try and check my karma first) and I'm trying so fucking hard to reward my improvements here by feeling proud and allowing myself to cathartically release my anxiety.
Okay!! Now time for the full positive!!!!!:
I am very, very close to obtaining every single Kanzaki Souma card available in Ensemble Stars! basic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you're not familiar: Ensemble Stars! is a gacha game that began in 2015, revolving around high school boys (and, later, some graduates as well) who are also school idol singers. Yes it's a very cliche, anime-ish premise, but the real draw of the game wasn't so much the gameplay (very simple, though there is a rhythm version available now) but the writing: there are a huge number of characters, all with their own unique quirks and histories, and they are intensely inter-related: I've never encountered such a shipping-friendly canon before!! And the first game in particular actually has a surprisingly dark story: it takes place a year after ~The War~, a terrible sequence of events in which a few of the characters tried to save the school by sacrificing some of their other classmates and in doing so, as the fandom so often jokes, gave basically everyone there some form of PTSD.
I started playing in mid 2018, but I didn't really get into it until early 2019. At that point it was only available in Japanese (now there's an English version of the rhythm game available, but it's still pretty new!), and I started in part to practice and develop my own Japanese, but I soon fell head over heels for one Kanzaki Souma. He's so embarrassingly my type in appearance and themes: a noble, long-ponytailed samurai who is earnest and rule-abiding but incredibly naive and too loyal for his own good; a veritable ray of sunshine with an anachronistically old-fashioned accent and sword to boot, a weirdo who sincerely believes in all that is good, even when it is very much opposed to his own best interests. But he captured my attention even further because of his backstory, which has him situated on one of the 'bad' units aligned with the Student Council, which leaves him an accessory in the sabotage of innocent people - including his beloved sempai, the carefree captain of the Marine Bio Club, Kanata.
Look - I could ramble forever about how much I love him (and he and Kanata together; would you believe they go on to depict Shinto worship themes?! Like this ship was written specifically for me and my id?!?), but back in the early days, I felt... pretty much alone. The English fandom was very small, and Souma was one of the least popular characters. What little content there was for him overwhelmingly just treated him as the comic sidekick to the most 'interesting' characters, with none of the angst or reflection I desperately wanted for him.
So, I did it myself. I sent my headcanons out into the world, delighted when they got one or two likes. I poured myself back into Japanese so I could translate his birthday messages and other such short texts myself. I wrote fanfiction after fanfiction - more than for any other fandom ever, for me! - and filled up the Kanata/Souma AO3 tag almost single-handedly; for three years, I was the only person to post in there, or ever really comment on them.
But over the years, that changed. I met someone who shared my headcanons, and we went on to have extensive conversations together through twitter or DM, not just about Souma (though he is the most important thing!) but also about ourselves. The fandom grew, and numbers on my Souma tweets went slowly further up, until it didn't just feel like me: there was a whole fandom of Souma enthusiasts making things, sharing their ideas, and expressing their love for this silly anime boy!!
And, in all that, I realised that I had become somewhat Known, among few: The Souma Person. The one who desperately, endlessly loves him.
I'm not quite as active in the fandom anymore, now; for so long I felt this strange pressure to be there for him even if nobody else was, like he was my personal charge. Now, I feel like he's in good hands, with people who will love and create for him just like I did! (Certainly, when it comes to translations, there are people much better than me out there... :'D) But I still play the game: the simplicity of it makes it perfect for just doing something with my hands while I do other things, and I feel a real pride looking over my album of obtained cards and costumes!
And soon, my ultimate goal - one I have been working at ever since I first decided to become a SoumaP, way back in 2019 - is finally coming to a conclusion.
Getting Souma's cards as they come out isn't too bad. I'm strangely unmotivated to pull for anyone else (except maybe Kanata, his sempai slash captain slash God slash victim slash husband <3), and seeing that dia count slowly tick up gives me a sense of productivity and fulfilment. I don't insist on getting the cards as soon as they arrive; if I run out of dia, I save up for a rerun. (Which is why I've spent very little on this gacha game over the years. Buying currency just doesn't feel satisfying; there's no pride in showing off that I'm an adult with a disposable income. I want to show that I've worked for Souma, slowly, over time.) I don't go for his SCRs, either; getting three copies of a gacha card is just too unpredictable. (Though I did get the SCR of one of his limited cards recently, because it's easier and I felt like I had enough!) I do max out all of his event cards, but that's 90% about stamina over resources, anyway.
The big obstruction was his older event cards, that came out before I started playing or got serious. Initially I had to do a revival event, which I planned out stressfully, and through that slowly got most of the easier ones and one very much not easy one. But out of nowhere the system changed so that you instead get coins from playing normal events which are exchanged for older event cards. That was worse at first because I just couldn't find as much motivation playing other characters' events, but over time they did build up, and a couple weeks ago I finally obtained my last Souma 5* card.
Now, all I have left are some of the old 3*s: low-rarity cards requiring very small number of coins. Even then, it's going quicker than expected, given that in November we had a Keito event (got 3 copies to try and Finally SS rank the Akatsuki stage so I can get Souma's A+ ranking; still hasn't happened :'D), and right now we have a Kanata event (getting 3 copies just because I like Kanata :) ), so now it's coming up very quickly.
It'll be amazing to finally see it done!! I plan to make a whole big post to the subreddit looking back on it all - the triumphs, the tears, the time I got a limited card on extremely low rate up like some Shinto god of fortune wished me to someday achieve my goal! <3 I'm not entirely sure what I'll do when I'm done; there's still some Kanata cards I'd like to get, and obviously I intend to keep playing for any new Souma cards, though he sorta got ahead of the line last year so he probably won't get a new 5* any time soon.
I'm not usually the sort of person to play video games to completion; my fandom activity is usually more in fanfic and analysis than any engagement with canon directly. But somehow, Ensemble Stars! just worked for me. Souma came into my life at the exact time I was desperate for a purpose, and after some early fears that I'd grow out of him when I moved on to newer fandoms, I really think now that I'll carry him with me forever. In this grand, wide old world that we live in, Kanzaki Souma is but a very small part - but I think I can sensibly say that he is MINE. And I will always, always be grateful for that. <3
no subject
Date: 2024-01-24 03:43 am (UTC)> a few of the characters tried to save the school by sacrificing some of their other classmates
:O omg!! That's quite dark!
> a noble, long-ponytailed samurai who is earnest and rule-abiding but incredibly naive and too loyal for his own good
Hehehe I love this archetype too!
> I'm not quite as active in the fandom anymore, now; for so long I felt this strange pressure to be there for him even if nobody else was, like he was my personal charge. Now, I feel like he's in good hands, with people who will love and create for him just like I did!
Aww, I love that! It's like you were able to build this entire fan community for him, and now you can share the responsibility of supporting him.
Many congrats on reaching the goal - I know the pain of gacha and RNG!
no subject
Date: 2024-02-04 07:05 am (UTC):O And oh, I think I described that in a misleading way - they weren't attempting to physically sacrifice them in the sense of straight-up murder, but rather to sabotage their idol careers and ruin them!! (Which, in an idol anime series, is practically the same, right...? :'D) However, things like death and murder and war - even cannibalism!! - do come up in the backstories, so... yeah, the series is known for how kinda shockingly dark it can turn at times :'D
And eheheheh... it feels egotistical to say that I build the fan community for him... But when I look back on things that introduce people to him - his Wiki page personality description, or his TV Tropes page, or even just comments on reddit... I really was mostly responsible for so many of them!! On two separate occasions I saw people referring to a recap I randomly wrote in a reddit comment one time (under an account I don't connect to my typical Souma fan identity at all haha) as teaching them so much about him... Whichhhh tbh at many points has left me really anxious that I'm Projecting Myself On Him Too Much and misrepresenting him to everyone;; But now that there are so many more people, I've seen so many other headcanons and interpretations, and I'm so so happy I've helped at least get people interested in him that way! <3
RNG is strong, but my tireless love for One Samurai Boi is stronger <333