🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇

Was planning on going but not anymore. There’s a petition going around asking for full refunds because of the tv.

Change.org

Sign the Petition

GIVE US FULL REFUNDS. We should've known it was a TV. Miku Expo 2024 NA (OFFICIAL)

Miku expo 2024 is off to a truly awful start but I haven't seen any posts on here detailing the mess. So here we go, here's what's happened so far.

I will be linking some posts and threads from Twitter and will update this post as need be.

4/8 edits are in blue

**PLEASE DO NOT comment or send me DMs complaining about the setlist**

**Rather than tweet complaints at the Miku Expo twitter account, it may be best to email CFM and/or Crunchyroll directly.**

🎵 First up, ticket presales.

This year the expo was sponsored by Crunchyroll and ticket presales were only supposed to be available to those that had a Crunchyroll subscription. Those that qualified were emailed a link to presale. However, when that link was inevitably leaked to the public, it turned out anyone could buy presales because it wasn't a one-time link or linked in any way to verify your subscription

Additionally, VIP tickets are supposed to give the holder early access to the venue and merch tables, but I'm hearing that this is not being honored.

🎵 Merch

Higher prices and lower stock than usual. This is especially frustrating for the lightstick.

The only lightsticks that are allowed inside these venues are ones made for the event or ones from past vocaloid concerts. This is because other lightsticks are too bright and will reflect on the hologram screen. But what with the stocks being so low, many people can't even get these lightsticks.

🎵 so about that screen

The biggest news to come out about Miku expo 2024 is that they arent using the hologram screen. The Vancouver and Portland concerts have used an LED screen.

This was neither advertised nor communicated from CFM or Crunchyroll to the public.

This also makes the prohibiting of outside lightsticks redundant, as they won't interfere with an LED screen.

An LED screen is much cheaper to use than the transparent screen used for the holograms. And a lot of folks are pointing out the discrepancies between this and the higher ticket and merch prices.

The LED screen is also a lot more noticeable and out of place, it hasn't been blended well on the stage so far. Views from further back and the sides are not looking great.

The Miku Expo team have stated that the Vancouver show was filmed officially. Seeing as the LED screen was also used in Portland, we can reasonably assume the LED has nothing to do with the filming.

Fans are speculating that the reason the Miku Expo team have prohibited photos and videos at this year's expo is to hide the fact that an LED screen is being used for multiple concerts.

There's also speculation that the hologram screen is in CA in preparation for Coachella, where Miku is meant to preform on the 13th and 20th of April. Please note that this is just speculation, we have no way atm to confirm this.

Additionally, I personally would recommend not getting your hopes up about the hologram screen replacing the LED one for any concerts after Coachella. Seeing as neither Crunchyroll or CFM have communicated or addressed any of the complaints yet, we may just be stuck with the LED for the whole tour.

🎵 the doujin goods incident at Vancouver

Please refer to this thread for the full info, but here is a summary:

The Miku Expo team refused to let a fan distribute free doujin goods despite this fan getting prior permission from CFM to do so. An individual also took this fan's miku cutout, though I believe it was returned later.

🎵 there is still a live band

I figured I'd clear this up since I've seen some mild miscommunication on it. There is a live band, just not the usual band they have for Miku concerts. This is not at all an issue, and in fact I've heard nothing but good things about the live band. I figured I'd bring it up for information's sake.

Honestly, kudos to them killing it on stage in the midst of the mess.

🎵 Someone allegedly pissed on the floor at either the Vancouver or Portland show

I have. no words. what the fuck dude.

If anyone can find the original tweet(s) claiming this, please link them to me. I'm not rooting through vocatwt to find the piss tweets.

🎼Concluding notes

It's been 6 years since Miku expo has come overseas. The 2020 tour was cancelled due to covid and Miku expo 2024 is it's 10th anniversary. This was supposed to be a big deal, a huge comeback tour for NA!!

However, due to absolute abysmal planning on Crunchyroll and CFM's parts, Miku expo has been a massive disappointment for many fans so far.

I know I'm nervous for when I go in May, but I want to try and end this on a more positive note.

Vocaloid has, first and foremost, always been about the music and the community. It's undeniable that we as fans have been mistreated by CFM and Crunchyroll here This is not the concert tour we deserve, but I'm sure we can still find things to enjoy.

Hearing vocaloid songs live has always been a dream of mine, and for the first time in my life I'll be surrounded in person by folks who love vocaloid as much as I do. I couldn't even fathom being in this situation back in the early days of vocaloid, being a little kid listening to Melt and World is Mine for the very first time.

I'm absolutely still angry about how the expo has been handled, but I still want to enjoy what I can, being with folks who share that same passion.

There are plenty of fans on twitter detailing the fun time they had at the shows so far. If you do end up going, you can absolutely still have fun too!!

I posted these on reddit a while ago and I've gotten multiple messages asking if I had any other social media? Which I didn't at the time, but after years of not bothering to post my art I think that was the boost I needed to finally re-emerge from the rock I've been living under.

ANYWAY uhhhhhh I've drawn these guys so much since I posted this that they might look a little different when I eventually post my newer art of them. Mostly because I don't bother drawing the little crosses on their heads anymore besides on leshy because frankly the antennae are really funny. If anyone has any questions about my hcs or what I intend to do with the characters, my ask box is open and I don't have anything better to do than endlessly ramble about gods that 100% would rip my head off immediately if I ever encountered them!

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the reception I got for these on reddit was way more positive than I was expecting which I am immensely grateful for, but there was definitely some miscommunication about the afab shamura headcanon so I'm just gonna dump about that below the cut if you want to hear me ramble about my nonbinary-ness for a while:

OKAY SO it's canon that the bishops were feral little animals before they found their crowns, right? Leshy and Shamura both talk about it during their follower quests. Feral animals do not have a concept of gender, only biological sex, so if they ascended to sapient godhood they would suddenly have a grasp of gender. My hc is that Shamura was a female feral spider, ascended to godhood, lost their bio sex in the process as with all the other bishops, and was just like "you know what? I don't want to be anything. This is kinda swag actually" so they just became War and Grief and Cosmic Horror incarnate. I am fucking desperate for any relatable enby representation in the media I like, so I just want to clarify me saying they were female at some point just is me going "I am living vicariously through this character who shed their mortal flesh prison to be an eldritch spider war god devoid of any sex characteristics" and not "I'm one of those numerous people who for some reason lumps this canonically agender character in with a binary sex". Anyway thank you for reading this far, here's an unfinished voidpunk shamura from a pride flag color palette thing I did of the bishops:

I love reading your analyzing of Coyle. I wondered if you had any thoughts on his sexuality? (I mean I have a damn spread sheet myself, but you're so much better at words and really great at psychoanalyzing lol). I've described him as being "the straightest gay man I've ever seen" to a few people now and eventually the "get" it.

(CW: discussions of canon typical sexual and racial violence, slavery, internalized homophobia, domestic violence and femicide. One of the linked videos also discusses fascism using disturbing transphobic rhetoric as an example.)

Thank you for your kind words, it’s really nice to know my ramblings are resonating with someone! Discussion should be allowed to emerge naturally, but I think much of the debate that arose from the revelation of Coyle’s character was removed from the context of the oppressed groups being commented on by the text. I say that mainly in reference to people of color, since the KKK represents a cultural trauma which is inextricably attached to blackness, but the statement applies to queer people as well. That very Klan was almost extinguished in the 1870s until it was revitalized half a century later by a film, of all things: media is obviously important. There’s much more that can be, and to an extent needs to be, said about this story beyond rehashing “it is/is not okay to hornypost about this” ad nauseam.

So let’s get this out of the way: I think Coyle was deliberately being written as queer. The ethics of incorporating LGBT characters in a setting so obsessed with the grotesque are questionable (you can read more perspectives on that here and here,) but I think there was intention behind the decision to depict him this way, whether it's "good representation" or not.

One of his defining traits is that he habitually deploys lewd, effeminate language to intimidate and dehumanize his victims: “alluring piglet,” “honey,” “beautiful/sexy b*tch,” “darling,” “sweet, ripe young things" and the like. You could argue that is solely a degradation tactic rather than a direct indicator of his sexual preference, and he does seem to do it primarily to scare you. But a big part of the horror in Kill the Snitch is that Coyle is very unembarrassed about how much pleasure he gets out of subjecting you to that degradation. (“You lick my boot, maybe I let you up.”) The innuendo he taunts the Reagents with is unaffected by their gender presentation, and The Snitch is a fixed character presented as a cis man who Coyle treats with just as much aggressive leeriness. From there, it's difficult to interpret him as straight. 

And since Coyle is one of the main villains of the game, I think I would be remiss if I argued that his bi/pansexuality is a thematically insignificant byproduct of his broader characterization as a sadist. That conclusion certainly presents itself: even if his queerness is loudly implied, it isn’t commented on directly by the text the way other aspects of his character are, like racism and uxoricide. The closest we get to a clear, unmistakable identification of his sexuality comes in the form of his aforementioned attitude towards The Snitch. 

While the Reagents are interchangeable grunts, The Oogie Boogie Man Snitch is Coyle's own prisoner, and as such we witness him compound the usual routine of sexualized cruelty with repeated assertions of possession, calling him things like “toy” “mine” and “property” to emphasize a sense of ownership. He comes completely undone when the Reagents electrocute him to death, exploding into thwarted, miserable rage like a kid watching their sandcastle get kicked to shit (“No! FUCKING NO! He was mine!”) and throwing out all of his beliefs at once as this jumbled, fascistic mess; “anarchist pinko fucks” this and “country’s going to shit” that.

Perhaps the most telling line about their dynamic is this one: “Jesus Christ you look like my second wife, you know that? Spittin' image. Woman got me 'bout as hot as Missouri asphalt.” The only time we see how Coyle interacts with people on an even playing field is in the files, when it’s mentioned that he killed two of his fellow soldiers when serving in the army & brutalized a murkoff agent interviewing him. The social dominance he has over people like The Snitch and his wives seems to be the only way he’s capable of conducting interpersonal relationships on a vaguely emotional level. Otherization, fuckability, and the need for corrective shame/subordination are all intertwined in Coyle's head, muddling together to form his notion of natural hierarchy: one which is incoherent, self-serving, and more about appearances than anything else. (“I know what you did. I just need to hear you say it.”)

And the importance placed on appearances isn’t just something that Leland happens to believe. In the era when this game takes place, the electric chair was at peak popularity as a form of “humane” capital punishment: in reality, it was a callous technological repackaging of the methods of execution which came before it, namely the (distinctly racialized) hanging/lynching. These methods were designed to reinforce social hierarchy by staging voyeuristic displays of dehumanization, and were levied with particular barbarism against people of color. There’s a catalog of horror stories I could insert here about white supremacy and the electric chair, but that’s another post entirely. What I want to establish is that:

A. It's easy to interpret The Snitch’s execution (and the Reagent’s forced participation in it) as a symbolic enforcement of Murkoff’s construction of social dominance, akin to capital punishment or lynching/state sponsored terrorism. B. Men like Coyle were categorically responsible for orchestrating executions like the one in the game, and the fact that he gets so angry and addled about it even though he’s ostensibly a follower of their doctrine speaks to the nature of his ideology. 

Though a lot of real world topics get touched on by Coyle's dialogue, it certainly isn’t 100% down-to-earth social critique. Many of his lines invite you to laugh at him (“It's hurtful when you disrespect the badge. I have feelings, too”/”Ain't you slicker'n a can of mashed assholes”) and his crimes themselves are, at times, overblown and ridiculous. He's a caricature of institutional violence and injustice, not a straight faced example of it. No, the realistic part of Coyle’s storyline is how the power structures of 1950s America both protected him from consequences and deliberately encouraged him to degenerate. I’ve alluded to this before: it’s one of my favorite things about Trials.

He was sent to military school because of his violent tendencies and joined the marines to avoid investigation after killing his first wife, but once he had the Police Department to shield him his behavior escalated in severity so much so that it attracted the attention of an even worse organization. The process was Military School → Ku Klux Klan → Marines → Police Department → Murkoff. This facet of the story was always there, but the newly released comic really hammers in the point, that Coyle - infantile, nonsensical, vulgarly abusive and utterly unworthy of authority - was never a barely tolerated outlier or a well kept secret within the systems he budded up from. The files directly attach his klan involvement to police work even as he's described as a “good cop:” because there were no good cops in Blackwell, because good cops aren’t real. US Law Enforcement can be traced back to early southern slave patrols, they've had a handshake agreement with the Klan for decades, and you need look no further than the recent Minneapolis Police Department exposé to see how they operate in the modern world - and this game is set sixty years before 2023. Horrifying, yeah?

Understanding cops themselves to be fundamentally immoral and unjust, by the time we meet him in the game, Coyle isn’t even a competent cop in terms of his willingness to enact unjust aims. Yes he is brutal, yes he is racist, yes he clings to the childish, cowardly belief in immutable superiority found in actual modern fascists - but the ouroboros of psychosexual issues driving him to behave the way he does take precedence over his purported devotion to any belief system, to such a degree that he isn’t even acting in explicit defense of an institution anymore. That job, to defend the current institution, is what the Reagents are being trained for: the same ones he deems subhuman and, most tellingly, “perverted.”

One thing that makes Coyle’s whole presence in Kill The Snitch  so surreal and disorienting is how manufactured and aimless his job as The Snitch’s defender really is. The man play acts an interrogation of someone who will never see trial, referencing vice squads, courts and elections that are nowhere to be found in the Sinyala facility - even though a different line of his mentions how they “don’t favor courts in these parts.” So, he’s directly contradicting himself. When the Snitch dies, he goes “NO! NO! I'll never... God DAMNIT,” not even finishing his own sentence about what it is he apparently needed The Snitch for.

The man obviously thinks otherwise, but he’s a make-believe cop, a test dummy for trainees to be pitted against ala shencomix’s professional hater. Though nowhere near as disenfranchised, Coyle is a puppet in Murkoff’s trials as much as the Reagents are, all his nasty, grandiose rhetoric ultimately amounting to hot air: and unlike the Reagents, this does not end with him being reborn. He lacks the overarching purpose of eventual service to a greater cause that they have.

And therein lies the self-destroying prophecy inherent to his understanding of reality. You can argue that Coyle is aware (subconsciously or otherwise) that there exists the potential for him to be otherized, and by extension subordinated, for an immutable part of himself which is directly attached to his sexuality and masculinity. I’d be surprised if he wasn't, considering how loudly the prejudices of the culture he arose from are relayed to the audience. The fear that comes from that knowledge gives birth to an obsession with categorism, shame, and “justice:” which he rationalizes as an immutable aspect of reality by connecting it with the natural phenomenon of lightning. (“I used to stand in a storm and watch the lightning strike the plains and I would think, "well there you go." That's justice. Sometimes the finger of God reaches down and touches you. But you never know which finger it is you're gonna get.”)

This leads to violence which he is constantly rewarded for: and because it’s the only viable outlet he has for exercising those very issues which he was trying to avoid confronting in the first place… he overindulges. Loses all interest in presenting the rhetoric coherently, in favor of chasing the immediate release that cruelty provides with ever-increasing vigor. (Funny how he calls the Reagents “dope addicted” too. Mr. Sony VPL strikes again!)

But in the end, Coyle is worthless. He’s a tool, designed to be overcome. It's a similarly symbolic, utilitarian role to that of The Snitch, which potentially feeds into his perverse sense of protectiveness over him, but the people who are coming out the other end of this with a job to do in the real world are the Reagents. People he looks down on, people he terrorizes, people he’s so desperate to bend to his will. He’s like... white chauvinism revealed as senseless, small and disgusting, condemned to chase its own tail & buckle under its own weight no matter how hard it shakes it's fist at the sky. 

And in a series so fixated on delusion and the disintegration of the self, the nugget of reality within that was thrilling to see on screen. 10/10, would cringe at again.

I just love this too much tbfh

Old dumb warm-up sketch

“Take your dad torture boss to your eldritch god’s nightmare realm” day

Commission for @batiful !! It was super fun to make, I loved working with you in such a fun prompt!!

That is all bc you're really cool :]

(Also how tf did you do the fire letters in your artist post bc that's so [FAZBEAR] cool omg h- /pos)

thank you <3

here. take this. it is a gift

cooltext.com

Burning Text Logo Generator

Cool Text is the worlds most popular graphics generator. Online since 1998, our servers have rendered billions of free images.

To everyone who said that there was a difference between the bishops and Narinder. Not anymore.

I finally got it. I’m at peace