#I WANT TO HAVE A CIVIL CONVERSATION WITH YOU

[dross-the-fish]

What does it take to be friends with each of the Motley Crew?

Because, I would love to be friends with Quincey, Selma (they seem to be very kind people), and Adam.

I would also say Jekyll/Hyde, but they are obviously unhinged, and I would probably die, so...

It's really circumstantial. Quincey is pretty easy to make friends with. Be nice and a generally decent person and he's down to be buddies. A lot of people tend to mistake him for being bookish because he a little over formal and wears glasses. Once you are his friend he's ride or die, as Larry can attest. He sometimes clashes with his schoolmate Robert Liddell (Alice's son) but never holds petty grudges. Larry is more shy so he may take awhile to warm up to you. He prefers people who have kind of an off-beat sense of humor and don't take life too seriously. Not the most outdoorsy he prefers to hang around reading magazines and listening to music in his room so if you're good with just hanging out at each other's houses you've got a life long friend. Selma is looking for a good time. She tends to live like every day is her last and if you want to spend time with her you might want to be ready to do some hard drinking, fast driving and gambling with your life. Honestly she is a little bit of a thrill seeker. She is smart enough never to bite off more than she can chew and her risks are calculated but they are still risks. She has a touch of wanderlust and is a bit grizzled and haunted but she has a good heart. Theo is the kind of person who seems very friendly and charming but you'll discover after awhile that she's holding you at arms length. She'll never be rude or aggressive but she's not making any efforts to let you know her intimately. if SHE feels like she's vibing with you then she'll open up a bit. She might start small, little conversations about her Nan and missing Ireland and eventually work her way up to deeper more emotional topics. She wants a confidant and companion. So far her closest friends are Selma and Adam. Watson, depending on your age he may treat you more like he's your stern but kindly father than a friend. He does like adventure and gets really swept up in the excitement of a mystery. Indulge his sense of wonder and he's pretty easy to befriend. Erik, if you like music, magic tricks, are willing to recognize his genius and don't balk at his body count he's not hard to befriend. The Daroga will tell you to lower your expectations though. Erik is kind of like feral raccoon. Inexplicably there will be some mysterious noises coming from behind the walls at night, and some of your things will disappear only to reappear in odd places. He generally only comes out at night and if you startle him he will scamper away, disappearing into tight places you didn't think a whole person could fit. But he is a very polite gentleman and when he's not being a wet gremlin he's fine company.

Adam easy to make friends with as long as he believes you're being sincere. You can bond with him over going on long hikes, appreciating nature, reading poetry and debating over philosophy and literature. Jekyll/Hyde likes good people, is drawn to good people, especially if they are passionate and inquisitive. He does prefer the company of educated people and gets very impatient if he feels like the other person can't keep up with him intellectually. You have to accept that being his friend means you're going to get a lot of cattiness and petty spite. He is amused at the misfortune of others and being someone he likes doesn't make you immune to his abuse. If you can handle the fact that he's awful he can be a lot of fun and he can be very civil and congenial. He loves his work and is fascinated by the strange and the supernatural so his conversations can be very interesting.

[nantokanarusaa]

Ao no Flag (SERIES FINALE SPOILERS!!)

Seriously, don’t read this if you are planning to read Ao no Flag. That being said, go read the manga now!!

Finally finished reading Ao no Flag and I have so many feelings. Non-coherent, rambly, messy feelings. I was looking at reactions online and what mainly boggles me about the reactions to the final 2 chapters is people being “how is Taichi suddenly gay??” My friend living on this big planet he never was (he’s bi). He most likely just realized it later in life. Did the events of his 3rd HS year help him figure it out? Heck yes. Is he suddenly bi? No.

Not all queer people pop out into this world and instantly know they are queer. Heck, it took me 23 years to figure that out. It’s not like Taichi instantly realized he likes Touma and started dating him. He knew Touma mattered to him somehow, but it took him multiple years to realize how, as evident by him maybe starting his relationship with Touma after 5 years when Touma contacted them all. He gained life experience and grew.

People go through a lot of learning, unlearning and growing. Especially if you are outside of societal expectations and norms. Taichi grew up learning to and wanting to blend in with society. “Be normal, don’t stand out too much”. Add to that low self-confidence and you feel stuck. Feel like there is only black and white. only one right answer to life. It can be very difficult to look out of this dark box, trust me, I had a tough time and sometimes still do. But it feels like Taichi thought and thought and pondered even back in high school and came to the decisions that he did.

And isn’t that what the series is about? growing as a person, making mistakes, learning, allowing yourself to be visible and vulnerable, and eventually, making choices, even if they don’t make sense to anyone else, and continuing to do so?

These two pages really hit me hard and I was wondering why. And then it hit me. This is possibly the happiest I’ve seen Taichi be since his childhood. Like genuinely happy. He’s reached max happiness points and is sharing those with Touma. He’s made his choices, and he’s happy. You can and are allowed to choose what or who makes you happy.

That’s all that matters.

[scarapanna]

I liked your art, you won🎉🎉🎉

WE WON NO REDEMPTION WAHOOOOO/silly

I'm still terrified of the redemption route for this clown though hdhghfg, I want his silly self to stay evil and wimsy and goofy and with redemption uhhh

We're like

I dunno I'm sooo scared devsis is gonna take away that aspect which is what makes him just so funnn. Please pretty please let him be god awful and rotten and rude and goofy if you take that route Devisis I want him to keep his funny wimsy qualities. Please please pleaseeee write him well y'all are doing sooo good with him don't fumble by taking the redemption route (And if they do it better be good and he better stay chaotic and goofy and sassy and condescending and all his "rotten rabid thing" qualities)

If they do him (And his fun aspects justice in this dreaded hypotetical) then I may be cool with it. Though the mean ass possum has grown on me so much I'd 100% miss that evil and unhinged part of him TONS, devsis have mercy pretty please/silly

[Longer more insane ramblings are in the tags hsfhfhhv]

[stellar-solar-flare]

The helicopter moment though. 🔥

But nope. The Accords were a terrible insult to human rights (Shooting people on SIGHT without a trial????? And you expect Steve Rogers of all people to be down with this???) and also Tony himself violated them the second he started forcing them upon others. 'Rules for thee, not for me' Energy, which I absolutely respect character wise because that feels very accurate to who he is/was.

And Steve wasn't perfect with his choices but my god Tony's trauma does not excuse him wanting to strip other people of their civil rights and I feel like that's not a conversation the fandom is having enough.

Continuing with my MCU rewatch and confirming that Civil War still annoys me the most 🙄

So many things in it annoy me so fucking much.

[watermelonsloth]

One of the most interesting parts of Naruto that I haven’t seen talked about nearly enough is the concept of offering a hand to someone who has done you wrong and you have no reason to like.

Naruto hardly ever offers help to or has meaningful conversations with anyone who… for lack of a better term, isn’t an asshole. From condescending Neji to serial killer Gaara to fascist dictator Nagato, Naruto primarily redeems people he has no reason to respect, let alone like. Yet, save for maybe Haku and Nagato, Naruto is the first person to open a line of communication and offer sympathy where they don’t offer him any. This is all based on a core principle of the Naruto series:

Bad People Are Still People

They have reason behind why they think and act the way that they do, they have feelings and fears and interests, and they have both the capacity for good and to change. Naruto’s “talk-no-jutsu” is him appealing to an enemy’s humanity and inspiring them to do better in the same way he inspires his friends.

[olenvasynyt]

I genuinely hate this fanbase. You guys enjoy not listening to others, declaring you have the moral high ground and now I have heard that a person has been DMing a few of my mutuals and trying to spread rumors and talk shit.

I have lost respect for so many people, including those I thought were my friends. This fanbase is pathetic and brings out the worst in people. I don’t know what to say besides fuck you.

[worldclasspomelolover]

I beg to differ. TAD's success lies in its nuanced storytelling and characterization; not one single character in it is a purely one-dimensional evil or good, and Jinshi is no different. He doesn't get a "special vip pass to sexual harassment" just because he's a pretty and powerful guy, be it in his world or ours. I get why you think that way, but you may be missing the reason why Maomao and Jinshi's relationship appeals to so many people if your other point of comparison is Misaki and Takumi.

Unlike in Maid Sama where Usui (Takumi) clearly has an unfair upperhand and no respect for Misaki's boundaries, Jinshi and Maomao's entire relationship is built on both of them testing those very same boundaries. Like Takumi, Jinshi is also leagues above Maomao in their world's social hierarchy, is a popular slapstick incorrigible flirt (although there are strong arguments for that just being a facade, but that's a different debate), and enjoys teasing his respective crush. However, I believe that's where the similarities end. The important bit with Jinshi and Maomao is that they both provoke each other and cross each other's boundaries, and throughout the course of the story they (will) evolve as people and as partners to each other. Also, he grovels - as he should - whereas Takumi does not. That's what I, and a lot of the fandom, I guess, like so much about Maomao and Jinshi's relationship: it's messy, far from linear, and most of all, it's human.

I don't think that the majority of the fandom is in on glorifying the honey or frog scenes and crowning Jinshi as world's biggest heartthrob because they think he was hot and steamy in them. An influx of headcannon-y drabbles, sparkly fanart pieces of the aforementioned scenes, and posts on how beautiful (or annoying) Jinshi is cannot be taken to imply that he is a saint unencumbered by sin and that "we" all worship him.

One blog I can highly recommend reading if you haven't already is @julietcpulet, who makes fantastic commentary on Jinshi and Maomao's dynamics (some of which I believe you would agree with) and TAD as a whole.

One should be wary of comparing the reception of a fun (at the time) but very one-dimensional shoujo set in a 2000s high school setting to arguably the most well-written imperial china seinen we've gotten in a long time, if not ever. The first does not leave much room for nuanced appreciation, whereas the second does, and although there will always be people who lose the plot, not only is this statement untrue:

"In the end Fandoms didn't evolve at all. They just became more aggressive and more of a bully to what they don't like."

It's part of the problem.

If you want to have meaningful conversations and hope to change some minds, reducing discourse to a binary us (me) vs. them (everyone else), or sensationalizing it to a nothing-has-changed problem solves...nothing. In fact, calling other people's very civil responses in the comments to this post "stupid excuses" makes you the aggressive one and the bully 😭 so let's please not do that.

What is so great about TAD is how many conversations it opens on issues such as sexual harassment, gender dynamics, social hierarchy, family, and so on and so forth because of how unapologetically uncensored its more "problematic" scenes are. Just because some people have voiced strong opinions on things does not mean everyone agrees.

Same Energy..

Different Times...

Same Fans Reaction....

Never thought that 15 years later, Jinshi will get the same special vip pass to sexual harassment that Usui got in 2010.

In the end Fandoms didn't evolve at all. They just became more aggressive and more of a bully to what they don't like.

[steeldmg9375]

Newer screenshots, also debunking because why not. Apart from a creep she doesn't even gets the facts correct.

Apart from being an awful disgusting joke (grooming is not a thing to joke about really), T-8OO is not a robot, but a cyborg. Not 3 days old either. He was most likely manufactured a few years before he was sent. Don't forget the process of capturing and reprogramming which logically takes more. And J was just telling him that so people wouldn't think he's mad or that he has an RBF, obviously.

He literally didn't. It's not even that he wasn't even the one who reprogrammed him in some timelines, whoever did didn't do it for this (obviously). If anything calling them such things is demeaning and misunderstanding. I don't have to explain the ridiculousness of the non-consensual reprogramming thing and the innapropiate things it implies. There is power imbalance between machines and humans in general because the first ones have more capacity in certain things like strength and logical thinking but humans created them. Again, she is just implying weird things with this and not thinking about it the way it is truly.

She seems to be kinda obssesed with sl*very to some extent because she also hasn't done it with them, she has also done it with other figures, like from a specific myth about a certain deity (perhaps i'll talk about it on another post) where he is a sl*ve as well. It's not their sacrifice of anything, they don't work this way, you missed the whole point. Genuine lack of intelligence.

And it makes sense with stuff like this. Not the first time she shows signs of p*rn addiction. Like when she said she would read it for hours a day. She really has a problem and it's even affecting her ability to think. All is not normal.

More nonsense. They don't have the anatomy for that. It goes against their very purpose. And J would never do that. Does she not know how humans work? Apart from the p*do thing aside, it's straight up impossible. He's physically incapable of doing such thing at that age. And S wouldn't just be annoyed, she wouldn't allow anything of this sort.

More of the same thing. Unfortunately she has made drawings of this, i can't even show them because i can't really stand them, not even in the censor process. They are just that nauseating. And the way she talks about these malicious things gives off second hand embarrassment, as if she was being innocent and funny. It really isn't. She just looks incredibly out of touch.

On the good side, i guess, she lost some followers for this bullshit. She should have none as she's an awful person who doesn't even get right the things she talks about and promotes, but we're on our way there.

[latinokaeya]

really fucking annoying how my dad keeps on using my mum as an excuse/shield to get out of doing things he has promised me with the implication that if i don’t go along with whatever he says im an ungrateful selfish child who doesn’t love her. like i haven’t heard that one before my whole life !

[yunmeng-jiang]

I'm trying really hard to like NMJ and sympathize with his character recently... I've had a fairly hostile view of him since pretty much the beginning, so it's difficult to turn that around, but I don't want to fall into the trap that I keep getting annoyed at other people in the fandom for falling into (stubbornly sticking to their initial interpretation of a character to the extent where they're not actually paying attention to the text, they're just blindly hating because they don't bother to dig any deeper than surface-level This Character Was Mean To My Blorbo)

[hiddenbeks]

just did season unending with heidrun. wish it was better written

[cameoutstruggling93]

🤪😵‍💫😤😡🤬☠️

[stonesandswords]

.

[i-luvsang]

in the light of the recent situation or whatever you want to call it with mingi and that anime, i'm pausing my writing for him for at least a little bit. i understand a lot of people think his name has been "cleared" on this topic, but after doing my own research and trying to understand the fancall myself, i'm deciding to air on the side of caution. unless you have helpful and creditable information or want to have a civil/productive convo about it, let's not talk about it because i don't have the emotional space for anything that's not civil and willing to come to an understanding of my point of view (as i want to be civil and am willing to understand other people's points of view). some more detail in the tags :)

[sonippep-hohu]

To the people actually threatening the artist and saying shit like death threats: you are the fucking reason no one takes us seriously when we talk about issues. Stop acting like telling someone to kill themselves is the absolute last resort. Oh my god, I am so embarrassed of the people on the internet!! Thanks to you, I get compared to "twitter people who like to whine about everything that's a couple pixels on a screen!" Oh my fucking God!!

[ceramicbeetle]

i can't find the post now so maybe i've made it up entirely, who's to say, but i feel like i remember seeing a post about saccharina saying that she expects too much for the rest of the Rocks to treat her like family, but now that i'm actually watching the season, dude, she says multiple times that she doesn't care if they treat her like Family, she really just wants them to be decent to her and they refuse to even grant her that much