#-being an antagonist that needed to be stopped)

[letthelightshinein]

I think I'm being haunted by the spirit of that cat cos I made fun of how small he was. So here's another cat post because I'm having more cat related thoughts.

Luo Weizhao probably assumed that to Pei Su, he's just Some Guy. One that tried and failed to help him once, and one that he actually kind of hates and deliberately enjoys antagonising. Even as a kid when he's trying to look after him when he's sick, he seems to resent him being around. He has not taken in any of his well meaning lectures, which Luo Weizhao himself has always graciously accepted from his father and shifu, thank you very much. He gave absolutely no indication he wants him around, and though he comes over occasionally, it's presumably when Tao Ze is busy. It makes sense that Tao Ze gets on so much better Pei Su, he's so patient and good with children. It's generally better to leave him to it. Captain China has world saving business to attend to 🫡 I'll be there if he needs me, but he really doesn't.

When Pei Su shows up with the cat, he really does think Pei Su is just dumping it without thinking. I'm the worst option to look after anyone, I am not a good caretaker and I all do is work. I only eat instant noodles and I don't know how to cook. He knows this and he doesn't even like hanging out with me. I've definitely caught him rolling his eyes at me, he thinks I'm an idiot. He wouldn't give me something he really cares about. He must be extremely careless or he's doing this to piss me off again, I must put on my dad face and give him a lecture about Responsibility.

He doesn't know that Pei Su picked him with deliberate care. Because to Pei Su there's no where safer than to be with Luo Weizhao.

But to Luo Weizhao, he's had no indication from Pei Su that would suggest that kind of trust or attachment.

So it's a really big fucking deal when this guy that you have this long antagonistic relationship with suddenly decides to sacrifice himself to protect you. Cos wtf. Obviously things have Developed but still!!! It's all very shocking.

He asks the third question in episode 16 - why did you stop coming over? Luo Weizhao knows now that he is important to Pei Su, he's a smart guy. So an underlying question is, what changed? And if nothing changed then has he really been so blind to Pei Su needing his help for 7 years?

[moonrabbit250]

My thoughts about Thunderbolts*

I was going with moderate expectations just in case, but it was actually peak. It could end up being recency bias but rn its a tentative top 5 mcu movie for me. Had me crying like 3 separate times, and had some good comedy moments too. Loved its main theme too.

First, as much as I like seeing Walker be bullied because of him being a self aggrandizing ass, he gained some solid depth. Alexei was still quite silly but his relationship with Yelena was one of the highlights for me, he had a really good emotional core this time. The weak link of the group was Ghost, even if she's likable she was the least explored but her presence was felt when needed. Bucky I felt had the least connection with the others as a group, but because of his personality and past he fit right in. Valentina was an effective antagonist that got under my skin with her manipulations and using others to get what she wants.

The stars of this whole thing was ofc Yelena and Bob. I loved how we got to explore her guilt and feeling completely lost in the world making her the perfect person to help Bob. The way Bob's character arc is presented and executed is amazing. His depression and all consuming loneliness is the actual villain of the story is so beautifully sad. Him being so easy to manipulate at first by Valentina because of his value of himself being so negative and then lashing out to the world was done so well. The scene where he fights himself and is stopped by everyone else is perfect, the symbolism on that is just what I needed. I adore stories where you have to confront and try to accept all parts of yourself, eventually seeing other people already accept you so this was for me. Sentry easily my favorite mcu antagonist now.

Yelena being the one to relate and make Bob realize the most that its possible to survive the void was so touching. Her still dealing with the grief of losing her sister and pouring her heart out to her dad hit me so much emotionally. The trauma rooms for her were all depressing but the one that felt the most heavy was another version of her forcing alcohol down her throat. Lastly, Lena finding a family that she can feel she can be herself because everyone is just as inept as life as her just like Natasha is great.

Visuals for the memory rooms, The Void's character design, and darkness powers were so creative and helped for the emotional gut punches. I'm so glad I decided to watch this in cinemas.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Imagine you're Mr. Wu and your weird gay daughter runs away in tears after destroying some unespecified object while yelling about you ruining her life. Because you told her you'd be moving to another state. This is the last time you see your daughter in half a year, and when she comes back, she comes back... wrong. She's wearing a light leather armor, a fur-lined cape, and a green flower crown. She has two long scars, one alongside her spine and the other along her chest, the tissue around them covered in burn scars. Doctors say she shouldn't have survived. Doctors say she didn't. Yet she's right here, in front of you, hospital gown clinging to her small, fragile, trembling frame. She fidgets with her hands. Getting her to stay still has always been difficult, but now it seems impossible. She won't let go of her phone. She's always texting her two friends. When you take it away, she gets anxious. You always knew those damn phones cause kids to act weird, but your kid having a panic attack seems too extreme, even for her. Then again, she's always been odd. Nowadays, she wakes up crying and screaming almost every night, and you realize she's been stealing her phone from your bedside drawer every night to text her friends, returning it before you wake up. You catch her once and decide to give her that damn phone back. It's the only thing that calms her down, as if she were a baby with a pacifier. She spends her last weeks in LA clinging to her friends, having sleepovers and playing her weird board games with them. Everytime they drop her back at her house, there's an excessive amount of hugs and tears. But the moments when they call her, or when she leaves to meet with them, or when they show up at their door to pick her up... those are the only moments in which you see her happy. One of her friends, the rude and disobedient one, came back with a big scar on her face. She's been acting a lot nicer, though. The other one too. She acts a great deal more adult now. You doesn't know what happened or where your daughter went. She won't tell you. But you can tell this friendship is the only thing keeping her afloat right now. Maybe you know, deep down, that no one else would understand.

And then you decide to move anyway because fuck her amirite

[mayoiayasep]

happy birthday kei miyama my wish for you is that you are allowed to be an actual antagonist

[lemonduckisnowawake]

Rating (the translated, not actually OG) titles of manhwa/manga because I was bored

Monstrous Duke's Adopted Daughter/The Monster Duchess and Contract Princess - not egregiously long but boring when the story is actually interesting. 6/10. Rename it with something more snappish like the Adopted Shadow or whatever. idk. Have I mentioned I've been banned from naming things?

My In-Laws Are Obsessed with Me - 4/10. Also not horrible but it's clearly a clickbaity title and I roll my eyes. Better to rename it to like ..... something to do with blood maybe? Or if you want to keep it family-themed. Blood Ties? Also boring and you can tell I'm speaking from a western YA-genre reader

Beware the Villainess - 8/10. This needs no change

The Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine - .... it's exactly what the title says, ngl. 7/10. But it could be better and less of a summary. Don't know what, though

The Noble Girl Who Finds a Nerdy and Plain Guy Moe Thinks That the Arrogant Prince Is in the Way - 0/10. I just. Why? The official English title is something like The Lady Likes a Nerd over Princes, which I found weird but the summary was interesting (turns out it was a good manga. But the author just has zero respect for the agency of women. Like. Comically so that it's not even funny as it gets a tad bit narratively frustrating as it's used as a device to drag on the plot) Anyway. Just why?

An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride - 2/10. Not as unforgivable as the previous but horrible all the same. And while the concept was interesting and I gave it a try because it was a rec, it turned out to not be for me at all. The title is dramatic, I'll give you that. It reads like it's a self help book for demon kings who want to learn how to Love and that's basically the manga

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End/Frieren at the Funeral/Frieren the Slayer - 10/10. Look. Any of those titles are good. It doesn't pop out but neither does it force you to hide the title out of fear of being misunderstood

The Savior's Book Cafe Story in Another World - 5/10. Inoffensive but another summary title. You could have literally just called it the Savior's Otherworld Cafe instead. Or something

I Listened to My Husband and Brought in a Lover - 1/10. Encourages cheating with consent. Actually, the manhwa kinda did too (the husband cheated first and was like you should cheat too). At least people know what they're in for? Don't want to retitle it. It deserves it for starting with decent potential for that premise and kinda failing to deliver.

I Stole the Number One Ranker's Soul - 6/10. Again, it's pretty catchy and not terrible but I still don't like these summary titles. Manhwa is amazing, however.

Can't Stop Cursing You - 8/10. Dying laughing because it reads as someone going "man, I just... can't stop cursing you. Really can't help myself you know? Sorry not sorry" while zapping you repeatedly with curses. Still pretty stupid when the actual manga was REALLY shiny with all that horror and bloody gore and interesting plot

Gingerly in Love - 10/10. Trust me. Once I saw what it was about, I died laughing. Not the most memorable manhwa but the wordplay of the title....

The Tyrant Wants to Be Good - 6/10. Again. Inoffensive but there's something annoying to me personally. The manhwa is great, though. Love me a woman who makes her trauma everyone else's problem, regrets it, and then internalizes the guilt in her do-over at life so bad that she ends up getting aggressively adopted into a found family

I Got a New Skill Every Time I Was Exiled, and After 100 Different Worlds, I Was Unmatched - 0/10. Why are isekai titles actually the worst sometimes. Manga itself is meh, in my opinion. It has potential ruined by the usual commodification of women, so I dropped it despite my interest

Bonus:

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - 3/10. Twain really was isekai titling when he probably didn't know that Japan was even a thing, huh. Not terrible, but it has that isekai style of summarizing the premise.

Bonus again:

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Years a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her brother) Twelve Years a Thief, Eight Years a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent - -10/10. It was an okay book but you shouldn't have had this power over your book titles, Daniel Defoe. Seriously. My edition just says "Moll Flanders". Never have I wanted to shame a dead author more. It's not even an isekai but it's worse than an isekai title. It's a whole anime opening credits.

[enemyoflactose]

Me: I'm going to become a better person 🤗

Also me when I see someone mischaracterize and then hate on my favorite character:

[july-19th-club]

favorite type of villanous characters are the ones whose motivations boil down to

like they dont even have to have any stakes in the broader situation. they just have take pleasure in destruction

[competitioneddie]

I was never going to publish this but here we are, at the tail end of winter hiatus, still throwing daggers at each other over a ship war that's mostly fueled by a few very annoying very loud individuals that hide behind fictional blorbos to justify bigotry so. Brace yourselves this is long. This is specifically about 9-1-1 and part of the bucktommy fanbase but run with it it applies to every fucking fandom war ever.

One thing I see a lot is how we've twisted the idea of representation. Representation is supposed to give oppresed collectives the chance to normalize seeing people within their communities as fully fledged members of civil societies. It is never said anywhere that these representatives have to be perfect and we cannot accept holding them to impossible standards when the same perfection is not required for hegemonic identities.

Beyoncé and Karla Sofía Gascón are prime examples of how we as societies behave when confronted with the reality that oppressed individuals and collectives are still humans and are allowed to make mistakes and be wrong and imperfect and that still does not justify the hate we send their way. Beyoncé might be rich and turn a blind eye on sexual assault in her inner circle but she is still a black woman. Karla Sofía Gascón has been openly racist and anti vaxxer in the past and engaged in hate speech about the ongoing civil unrest over cultural repression in Spain, but she is still a trans woman. Doing morally bad things doesn't deny that they belong to oppressed collectives or justify in any way the structures that support systemic oppression towards them as non white or non gender conforming individuals, and their individual actions are in no way accurate representation of the communities they belong to.

Can this tie in with fandom ship wars? Yes, yes it can, because as we become more vocal about the lack of diversity representation and demand an end to token characters, we inadvertently push these unrealistic expectations on characters and portrayals alike and while I'm not here to discuss the merits of the cancellation vs death of author debate it's still relevant to remember that actors don't write characters, they only play them. If you're confused by that, that's on you. It's okay to dislike a performer because their values don't resonate with you but they can still be good performers and convincingly portray great characters that are their absolute moral opposites. It is possible to dislike a performer and dislike the character they play or think their performance is lackluster and unfair to an otherwise well written character (especially valid for book adaptations), but none of these scenarios imply in any way that it's okay to blur the lines. If you think a character deserves criticism because the performer ends up being a bigot you're disrespecting the writing and casting team, and if you think a performer deserves criticism because they played a controversial character maybe you should stay away from fiction in case it makes you question your moral standing and you feel attacked by it. Performers =/= characters.

On to the next topic, it is absolutely fine to dislike a queer character beyond their sexuality. It's fine to dislike a person, as a person. Nobody likes a dismissive partner or a nosy coworker or someone who has generally prejudiced worldviews. The tricky thing here is that you all need to ask yourselves why you dislike the character. Is it because they're written as actually morally evil or dislikable people, or is it because you're letting your privilege get the best of you? If you can ask yourself that question and really think about it you're probably fine disliking the character, really.

Acknowledging that some people have core values that are fundamentally incompatible with yours is normal and necessary, people pleasing is never a good strategy. You dislike a person, okay, toodle-oo, run along. Screenwriters know that they need unlikeable people for strong worldbuilding, they're spinning a tale and they need to take us there with them and sometimes that has to happen through awkward situations.

Sexuality is a big part of personal identity but it isn't intrinsically tied to a person's value as a person, because identity isn't reductible to a single trait and that kind of oversimplification leads to the formation and perpetuation of stereotypes that, when confronted with evidence to the contrary, might come out stronger than before. In other words, subjecting queer people to an unattainable ideal of perfection is only fodder for the haters who are going to take each and every one of their personal hang ups and turn them into a way to justify bigotry. If queer representation is bullied into fitting that perfect form, that is the example we're setting for our queer youth, effectively forcing them into comp het and other flavors of compliance to hegemonic hetornormativity.

We are all worthy of dignity, we just don't necessarily have to be likeable to be treated with that dignity is the point, and I'd like to see some grace for female characters regarding this, because apparently the argument that they aren't likeable and no one is shitting on them for being women goes that way and that's acceptable and okay and we're supposed to take in stride the million misogynistic stereotypes and remarks about them that do relate to the fact that they're women. You can dislike them for their core values -ymmv depending on your fandom but you'll find they're generally good people, morally-, but you cannot disrespect them for being women.

Oppressed collectives do not equal perfect people because oppresive dynamics are interesectional and no one individual belongs to a single collective at any given time because identity is complex and multidimensional, and it does not even matter because we still owe each other respect, recognition, full and equal participation rights and above all dignity, and this is not even my own thesis that is a widely recognised Social Justice perspective that we somehow erase when we talk about representation, which factually means making present the absent, recognising each other as worthy of dignity on the basis of existing regardless of the shape of our existence, and that goes back to Idealism, which you'll remember as one of the most influentian western schools of thought, ever, and despite the profound colonialism that operates in academia, the fundamental questions of the experience of being are common to a vast majority of cultural backgrounds outside of the western bubble. We all want and need to be dignified in the act of existing.

We owe each other knowing that we are all human and deserve to be recognised as such. We just don't have to support worldviews that infringe basic human rights or perpetuate domination narratives, and yes we still can treat each other with dignity because a person is also not reduced to their worldview and being human is not something we can evaluate based on moral performance. We're good people and we're bad people but we'd do well to remember that we're people.

That one character you hate might not be a good person, from a moral standpoint, but they are, in all their fictional glory, human, and valuable as representation of the collectives they stand for. We don't have to like them in order to ackowledge that they're -fictional- people. Disliking racist hate speech from a queer individual -again, fictional- doesn't make you homophobic, intersectionality is just one of the ways inequality operates. It does make said individual a racist, though. And you do not have to stand for racist individuals in fear that they'll call you out for being homophobic. You can take the good with the bad. Failing to see bigoted characters for what they were written to be and reducing their identity to their sexuality in an attempt to call out the other part not only fails at dignifying the other part, it also utterly fails at critical thinking. Responding to an articulated reasoning of why certain behaviors are racist with name calling is the manifestation of inability to reason.

That's all.

[clowndensation]

okay finally listened to the new podcast ep and. um. davrin 🥴🥴🥴

[bs-el]

Burying the hatchet with my pretransition self by giving the OC i made to represent them a redemption arc

[bmpmp3]

my most embarassing moment as an OC hobbyist is when i was like 20-21 and i started getting like. scared. out of nowhere. that people were going to be mad at me for making any antagonist characters. for a minute there i. convinced myself? that i was gonna be shot point blank for making a cartoon character whos mean LOL

[braidwoods]

reusing serafine for wren is exactly the kind of expected laziness pb always resorts to. i dont think its fair to compare the asset recycling to tyrils family or imturas mom though because yknow. theyre not humans. of course editing an existing sprite wouldve been the same amount of work to just make a brand new one for entirely different races

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

every now and then I just spontaneously remember that Arkk exists and that he was coded as a member of Scarlet's Army for reasons left entirely unexplained and I just go. huh.

[phagodyke]

I should rewatch I saw the tv glow tbh. so funny to me that I've been so firmly in denial abt how much discomfort I've lived with for forever that even now I'm trying not to repress it anymore, my immediate knee jerk response to watching a film exploring that explicitly was Um No I Don't Relate To It Or Understand It At All Actually Sorry Must Be A Fault With The Film.....

[waywardsalt]

i think the hardest wide-scope or w/e part of the bellum x linebeck fic is def nailing down whatever the larger background plot is. i want there to be some… event going on in the background that they occasionally intersect with and has effects on the foreground events, but i can’t exactly figure it out yknow

[therealsirsticker]

so in my sonic underground rewrite bartleby after shooting Sonia on an eggman airship in the middle of his morality crisis coming to a head gets exploded along with the ship after the hedgehogs narrowly escape ad he lands on angel island, very unconscious and barely alive, where knuckles finds him (and the two have not ever met each other before or know of each other’s existence) and helps this mysterious injured random guy. By the way the shooting Sonia and exploding is like the season one finale. Bartleby spends the majority of season two stuck on angel island dealing with the aftermath of his morality crisis, helping out knuckles bc knuckles helped him and what else is he going to do, they become friends (and maybe develop a Thing, I haven’t decided yet) eventually the hedgehogs show up on the island for whatever reasons and there’s a confrontation bc the last time they saw him, he shot sonia. And knuckles didn’t know this and he feels betrayed and bartleby runs off all dramatic bc it’s him, emotions cool off a bit and they go after bartleby to talk and he apologizes and tells them that he’s on their side now, but he wants to stay on angel island until he’s needed. They make up, yayyy hugs and friendship.