#FUCK FOREVER EVIL

[aingeal98]

"Cass would hate Jason." Yep, sure makes sense. At his peak they would have been bitter enemies. Even now when he's not killing, his existence hits enough of her emotional sore spots that I could see her disliking him.

"Cass would hate Talia." I'm blowing up this entire website and everyone's phones.

[tiredandoptimistic]

Okay, I need to talk about this passage from City of Bones

Something that comes up a couple of times in regards to the Circle era is that all the modern kids kind of look down on the previous generation for buying into all of this bullshit, much like the readers probably do. Clary is a modern American teenager, of course she hears about Valentine and immediately sees the obvious parallels to white supremacy, of course she can't believe that her family would go along with that and knows that she would do better. And Luke doesn't argue with her, or try to defend his assertation that Valentine wasn't always evil. Even if Valentine was Luke's friend at first, he still should have known better than to let things go so far. Jocelyn should have known better, the Lightwoods should have known better, they all should have known better. But they didn't, and neither does Clary.

Even though she's able to identify Valentine's rhetoric as hateful when she's learning about it as "things said by this mass murderer," she still repeats the same stuff after picking it up from people she trusts. Clary falls into the classic progressive pitfall of lumping opinions into right and wrong; people into good and evil. Luke isn't trying to convince her that Valentine was actually a good person or that it's okay to do a little violent hate crime as a teenager, he's trying to point out that knowing which people to label as "evil" doesn't actually do anything to make you an ally to the people being oppressed. She can hate Valentine, but can she see werewolves and vampires as people equal to herself?

The answer is yes, obviously she can. But it's only because she has people like Luke there to call her out when she does something out of line. Luke fell for that stuff too as a teenager, but he took the time to unpack all those hateful beliefs, and so has a much better understanding of how to live up to his ideals than the kid who's never done anything wrong in her life.

In addition, I really like that the book wasn't afraid to acknowledge how Valentine is definitely analagous to white supremacists. Most stories with some sort of fantasy discrimination act like this is the only bigotry and their characters have never heard of racism, but that automatically flattens the world. Clary thinks she knows enough about racism to apply those lessons from history onto a new situation, but she clearly isn't actually ready to practice what she preaches.

Also, this is by no means a Clary hate post. I love that she's a flawed character and that the narrative acknowledges this and lets her grow from it. A lot of stories would be afraid to look at the protagonist (who's kinda a reader insert) and go "you are not immune to propaganda," but it's an important thing to make the kids reading these books aware of. Clary isn't evil, but she did do some harmful things and has to reckon with that potential for hate within herself before it goes any farther.

It's not perfect and it's not a complete education on anti-discrimination, but it's better than what you might expect from a YA urban fantasy novel published in 2007. Hell, it's better than you expect from a lot of people active online today.

[boxheadpaint]

I just need to know is that Cackletta paired with Peach? If so, fascinating, I wish to know more - if not, I entirely understand the coincidence of two people standing next to each other in a dynamic does not equate to them being A Pairing

yeas

Reasoning: funny

[rustedhills]

Disney, releasing Wish: "so it's all about legacy--the new generation surpassing the old, overcoming the evils perpetuated by them, relinquishing singular power... and there's an old man in a tower, uh... animal sidekick, i guess..., ah... magic...?

Miyazaki, just out of frame, sledgehammer raised:

[mr-payjay]

there are a Million ways to be a system. don't limit yourself or Restrict your idea of them too harshly. speak to multiple systems if you want better references for depicting them (or just to know how they work) because every system is different and unique

[ribbononline]

Year of the snake with.... not a snake, but it counts to me, Gyarados! (Full textless img under the cut)

[clowns0cks]

I love you portrayals of the master where something is fundamentally wrong with them. Where they feel like they need to destroy to survive, like they were made for it and it's their purpose. Where they aren't ruining lives for revenge or to gain something, but simply because they need to. It's a guts feeling for which they need to cause pain and destruction without even knowing why, it just feels right. I love you portrayals of the master where they're just simply basically EVIL.

[soupradio]

Happy Valentines Day

[redpandavvstuffs]

"We need more clomplex female characters!!!"

Yall mfs couldn't even handle her 💀

[prentisspilled]

That must be the ink.

[wassupmygays]

Take an eye for an eye

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A post shared by The Outsiders Musical (@outsidersmusical)

all new clips of Justice For Tulsa, on stage and from the album recording session

[holyshit]

.

[frogaroundandfindout]

After Nightwing Vol. 3 #29 Dick brings the killer of Jen’s parents to Arkham. Dick and Barbra talk about the pressure of living up to Batman before she suddenly goes offline. Dick freaks about it then gets leashed

Forever Evil #1

[island-in-the-shadows]

"It's hard being an Armand girlie right now.."

Me: Is it? Baby boy definitely did all that shit, sure, and yeah it was terrible to Louis and Claudia and Lestat and Madeleine and technically the whole coven...he looked fabulous af doing it thought. Credit where credit is due he gaslit his way to a mediocre relationship and, probably, [Redacted but understood by the girlies in the *know* about 1973-1985]. Not being alone meant being in the worst possible relationship for all parties. Gremlin chose violence against everyone, himself included. I'm not gonna say oh woe is him when it comes to this (his backstory is a whole other story but we're not really there yet). He's a chaos demon and I just love that for him. And I love that it was his (eventual) fledgling who exposed him. He had it coming. Either way? He's a little evil shit but he sure as shit was fabulous doing it and I love him.

[chillentertainer]

saw some tweets condemning people for thirsting over cardinal tedesco bc he’s a fascist and it’s like… babe we know. we ALL know he’s a conservative racist dick, but GUESS WHAT?? he’s not real. so we can do whatever we want with him foreverrrrrrrr

[trappedinafantasy37]

There is a trend that I've noticed amongst fandom spaces around games, and it isn't a trend that is unique to Baldur's Gate. I have seen it happen in my other fandom spaces like Fallout, Cyberpunk, Dragon Age, etc. But people have a habit of having very strong opinions about companions/characters that they do not know.

It is comical to watch the abject lies people create about companions and use them as justification to dislike said companion because they know they don't have a valid reason to do so. This isn't unique to Minthara, this happens to ALL companions (ironically, the funniest and most egregious lies I've ever heard actually aren't even about Minthara). It's just glaringly obvious when it comes to Minthara as she is the least recruited and most killed companion in the game and is thus the least known. So the lies and mischaracterizations pop up more often, and there is an abundance of them. And it gets exhausting having to constantly fight these lies all the time. Especially when so few people actually know her and thus there are few who are able to defend her.

I remember there was a poll a few months ago that overwhelming voted Minthara as the least loyal and most likely companion to cheat on you. To me, that just screams that the people who voted for her in that poll have never had a conversation with her outside the goblin camp. Minthara is the most loyal companion. That is not an opinion of mine. That is a fact. That is canon to the game. She is canonically your most loyal companion. And it's not that she's the least likely to cheat. She never will. Again, not an opinion. That is canon to the game. But this is information people don't know, because they've never spent a single moment getting to know her. This is a lie being spread about her that will be used as justification to dislike her and to justify not recruiting her or justify killing her.

I have also seen people admit that their opinions about her is formed solely on social media posts from YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, or Tumblr because they just can't stomach having her in their party. As ironic as this is going to sound, but your opinion about a character should never be based on social media alone. The people who do this are missing out on the context of that post and often fail to use it in comparison with the rest of the character (especially since there is a high risk of a social media post containing misinformation or just straight up lies). People will take this one snippet of a character, and use it as if that it is all that character is. Posts on social media, including mine, are meant to be supplementary to your experience of a companion, not the sole foundation.

When it comes to these social media posts, no two people are going to have the exact same interpretation, which may cause confusion for an outsider looking in. Even amongst us Minthara enjoyers, we do not always agree, and that is to be expected. We are all different people who have lived different lives and thus have different experiences informing our interpretations. Even amongst my mutuals we do not always agree, and that's normal. But at least we have taken the time to get to know her and come to our own conclusions and can understand how someone else came to a different one. My posts, or anyone else's, should not be your sole source of information about Minthara or any other characters. You still do need to form your own opinion and that can only be done by actually spending the time to get to know them.

Recently, one of my old posts in which I talked about the relationship with Minthara and Karlach has exploded again. And I see the tags that people are attaching to it. The game has been out for 10 months now. And it makes me sad that people still have the wrong opinion about Minthara. It makes me sad just how little people actually know about her. It makes me sad that people are only now going to go recruit her for the first time, even though the knock out exploit has been here for months. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that my post has changed the way people see Minthara and encouraged them to want to get to know her. But it breaks my heart that I have to use another companion to convince people to get to know Minthara, because to them, Minthara alone just isn't good enough. They have already made up their mind about her, even though they don't even know her.

People are allowed to have whatever opinions that they want. But don't get online and share those opinions about a character you don't even know to people who do. It's like highschool level petty nonsense where people would rather believe and spread rumors about a person, rather than getting to know the person themselves and forming their own opinion. And, no, I don't care if your opinion is a positive one because even positive opinions can be inaccurate and wrong if you don't know the character. Again, this isn't just about Minthara but all characters and companions. And I'm only scratching at the surface level here. This essay would be significantly longer if I actually took the time to talk about how implicit bias, racism, homophobia, and sexism have all had a negative impact on fandom perception of Minthara and the other companions.

I will never tell anyone to do anything with their game they don't want to do, I will only encourage people to try new things. If you truly do not want to recruit Minthara or interact with her, that's fine. It's your game, your world, your rules, your vision.

But, I will say this. If the only conversation that you have ever had with Minthara is the one in the goblin camp, shut the fuck up about her. This cruel, heartless, evil person that floats around is a twisted version of Minthara that only exists on social media and was created by people who do not know her. This bastardized version is nothing like the version that actually exists in the game. And you would know that if you ever spent a single second of your time getting to know her.