#I feel more invested in the characters because they’re so human

[conventofpleasure]

all I want is for grace madison to live a few more chapters and not be a victim of the mean girl death curse

[watermelonsloth]

I think the reason why Naruto fans get so passionate and upset about the series is because of how real it can be. Naruto isn’t about paragon heroes outdoing dastardly villains. It’s about human beings fighting tooth and nail to survive in a world surrounded by death. It’s about broken systems made and perpetuated by broken people.

The Hyuga clan isn’t just antagonistic or pretentious, they practice slavery.

The Uchiha clan weren’t just killed by some raging psychopath, they were systematically massacred.

Itachi isn’t just cruel to Sasuke because he’s a bad brother, he’s cruel because he’d been told time and time again that you can only survive by being cruel and he wants nothing more than for Sasuke to survive.

Nagato isn’t trying to take over the world just for the sake of power, he’s trying to take over the world because it beat him down to the point of believing that the only chance at peace there is is the world being forced into compliance through fear.

Iruka isn’t hard on Naruto just because he’s a strict teacher, he’s hard on Naruto because he knows from experience how unforgiving the world is towards orphans.

Kakashi isn’t just some silly and slightly lazy teacher, he’s a contract killer still grieving his loved ones and struggling to do better without knowing how he’s supposed to.

Sakura isn’t just a fangirl, she’s a normal girl in a very dangerous and abnormal world constantly being made to choose between what she’s supposed to do and what she feels.

Sasuke isn’t just some edgelord, he’s a survivor who lost everything then gets repeatedly told that he has to choose between keeping what he’s gained and doing better than his brother.

Naruto isn’t just trying to be the best Hokage there ever was, he’s trying to prove his worth to a society that abandoned him just for existing and, in a way, confirm his worth to himself.

The Naruto story is about humans trying to force themselves into the role of weapons because that’s what they were told they had to be. It’s a story where everyone is a perpetrator but no one is trying to do wrong. It’s a story where everyone is a victim but no one is a perfect victim.

The world and the characters aren’t simple and trying to simplify them only takes away from them. So of course we get passionate about showing off all the reasons why they shouldn’t be simplified and all of the ways they’re complicated. Of course we get upset when we see others simplifying them or selling certain aspects of their characters short. Of course we get upset when the series itself simplifies them. Of course we get upset when the series chooses to abandon them. Because it not only feels like the characters are giving up, it feels like the series is betraying anyone who chose to get invested in its complexities.

[joicecubes]

HEY!!!!! HEY YOU!! (sits you down to listen to me yap about my queer headcanons for gravity falls characters)

mabel - okay lets get her out of the way. this girl is queer as fuck. she may not realize it yet, but in her teenage years i know she’s experimented with every single label and microlabel in existence. she’d try out hundreds of neopronouns. she realizes her obsession with boys as a kid was a result of comphet. i don’t have a specific label for her because i think in the end she’d discover she can’t make herself identify with any one label. because she’s just mabel! unlabeled and proud.

dipper - do i even have to say it… he’s trans. i think every queer person in this fandom headcanons him to be trans. moving on

stanley - he’s kinda unlabeled too, but for a reason opposite to mabel’s. ladies, gentlemen, doesn’t matter to him! i think its fair to assume he grew up believing that being gay was wrong, it was the 60s and 70s and his dad’s a piece of shit, but as he traveled the country and met so many different people and then witnessed the times changing around him… he’d just. grow into his attraction for men. like, yeah i like men? so what? he doesn’t care for labels. “bisexual, mabel? pansexual? quit making up words!”

(more starting with stanford under the cut this is gonna be sorta long)

stanford - hehehheee okay this is my favorite. i’ve thought about his sexuality a lot. he’s definitely gay to me, and i don’t have much reasoning for that other than like… my heart is telling me that’s the right answer. but he’s also definitely on the aroace spectrum. i personally think he’s demi or grayromantic, he feels romantic attraction VERY rarely and its part of the reason why he felt so helpless in the dating department as a teenager, and also why as an adult later on he tells fiddleford he doesn’t understand romance. he’s hardly ever experienced it! and he wouldn’t really KNOW he identifies with those labels until he’s back in his dimension and mabel is in her obsessed-with-queer-microlabels phase. he hears mabel say “demiromantic” and, being the nerd he is, immediately wants to know what this new word means and why he’s never heard of it before. so mabel rolls a big-ass whiteboard in and starts Mabel’s Guide to the Aromantic Spectrum! ford learns something about himself that day.

fiddleford - HE’S GAY. he’s gay. he’s so gay. i know he canonically has a wife but he literally leaves emma may to work on this mysterious project with his best and only MALE friend from college like… BE so fr. he made ford TWO christmas gifts and forgot to get anything for his wife!! i imagine his marriage to emma may was more of a way for him to deny his sexuality and live what he believes to be a “normal” life. and that obviously doesnt excuse the neglect to his family (because what the fuck fiddleford) but its how i personally make sense of his behavior.

bill cipher - bill transcends human comprehension of gender and sexuality. bill is just bill. but in human terms he’s a lover of all genders. as long as he can manipulate them, they’re fair game! (sorry ford)

wendy - okayyy yesss i know i used the comphet excuse once with mabel but i’m using it again god dammit. with the way wendy talks about her past boyfriends and how we see her be so vaguely invested in her relationship with robbie, it makes me think she’s either a lesbian or somewhere on the aromantic spectrum. she’s just not super interested! but she gives guys chances because why the hell not and is never super into any of it, eventually they break up, and she moves on with her life. i imagine sometime after high school is when she reflects on that and thinks… huh. was i ever attracted to men at all?

soos - saving the most anticlimactic for last… soos is straight to me. but he’s an ENTHUSIASTIC ally :)

thanks for reading i really like overthinking the theoretical queer identities of my favorite characters have a nice day (and let me know if you’re headcanons differ i would love to hear what people think!!)

[suhmingo]

I, uh, don’t know how to actually preface this. It’s really just a mini rant/pseudo-analysis of chapter 167. Which was pretty crazy. But, I loved this chapter, and yes I’m typing this with two hands.

But first let me try and do some housekeeping.

It’s perfectly fine to have an emotional, even visceral reaction to 167. That’s the point

If you feel grossed out, betrayed, unnerved, dumbstruck, or any form of bamboozled by today’s chapter then good! That means the emotional weight of the scene is working, and that you are a proper, feeling human. The

The whole point of fiction is to explore themes that would be difficult, even dangerous to experience from a place of safety. To me that’s, like the entire reason I ever wanted to become a writer, one of the most unsung broke boy jobs in the history of the world. My desire for Denji to get better in a world that is dead set on making him fail is the entire reason I have an emotional investment in the first place. Stories are inherently about conflict and the struggle with resolving conflict, that should make you uncomfortable.

Say what you want about Chainsaw Man. I can take it, I’m a big boy. But one thing that it has always had since Chapter one is a well-defined through line about the complexity of our innate desire to find some type of love fighting against the pain-wrought pathway that it leads us down. In a good story, every chapter should have some way of showing the highs and lows of that theme, and I’m pretty confident when I say that 167 perfectly shows us that.

It’s bad. Don’t let people who brag about their trauma tolerance tell you otherwise. You are well within your right to feel. But I think it would behoove people to 1. Realize that this is fiction, and its effects, though evocatory, are ultimately abstract, and 2. Realize that exploring dark themes allows people, especially a 16-25 (Or whatever the target audience for CSM is) to grapple with and think on human concepts as all encompassing as love.

From a writing standpoint, one chapter has escalated the tension of the entire story more than anything that has happened in Part 2 so far. It’s admittedly a bit early to call it peak. But looking at it as a simple story beat, that’s a fantastic chapter as far as the medium goes.

Listen, the whole point of stories since, like, Mesopotamian times was the tension between wanting a character to achieve happiness vs the hardships and trauma that life happens in life. They’re supposed to put you in a sensitive state emulative of a tense environment. I’d argue that the prevalence of escapist fiction and fandom has changed how we emotionally digest fiction. But that’s a whole nother essay.

The events of 167 aren’t some horny non-sequitur. Everything that happened is entirely a logical, if graven, extension of how we know characters.

Denji is at the lowest point we have ever seen him at. He was literally dismembered and put back together less than 10 chapters ago. The last chapter literally had him groveling on his knees at a cauldron’s brew of his own weakness, immaturity, stupidity, and horniness. I think we can all understand why he would not be in a good mental state to just lose himself in the moment. You can’t even blame Denji in this situation. He was in an entirely vulnerable state that was exploited entirely by

Yoru. Who is the literal embodiment of war. If you think that someone who represents the human fear of war is going to play fair. Turn on the news for five minutes. Yoru is a character we are not supposed to like. She’s fun, because she’s a work of fiction, but she’s arguably less trustworthy than Fami. She’s a violent, exploitative being who possesses a dead teenager. There is no “too far” for her if it’s the fastest way on the road to conquest. Reminder that before she caught feelings, her plan was literally just to castrate Denji because she thought that would further her goals. The fact that it turned into kissing was actually sparing a worse fate. IMO that savior was all in the actions of Asa.

Asa. I genuinely believe that, subconsciously, Asa wanted to kiss Chainsaw Man. Not like how it happened. Never like how it happened, but her desire for Denji/Chainsaw Man's affection has always been evident. She gets irreparably upset when she’s stood up, she makes cringe poetry for Chainsaw Man, and her entire goal as of now is in some misguided desire to make him happy. I also don’t think Asa is actually demisexual, or averse to sex. She is afraid of intimacy, which stops her from ever acting on her urges. Notice that both times Yoru has kissed Denji, it was after the idea of sex and intimacy was explicitly brought to the conversation. To me that screams that Yoru is spurred on by her host’s innate desires. Hell, it’s been shown that in the same way that Yoru has made Asa more proactive of a human being, Asa has made her feel emotions. I don’t think it's a coincidence that Yoru is blushing while kissing Denji. None of that was part of her plan. That’s Asa’s emotional influence getting the better of her in what I predict to be a fantastic role reversal of their initial contract.

This is thematically in line with how Chainsaw Man presents love and sets up deeper themes.



Remember way back in Part One when Denji was just an initial horndog and everybody kinda hated him? I hated Denji back then! When I first heard of Chainsaw Man I genuinely thought it was going to be a mommy-kink fuelled power fantasy. But I was wrong. Wonderfully wrong. Fujimoto used the allure of that idea in Makima to present a story about how dangerous and manipulative the very idea of grooming is, and how damaging that can be to a person. The same way Denji’s desire to get the approval of Makima was poisonous to him is mirrored in his desire for vapid, instantly gratifying sex is being portrayed here. I genuinely think this chapter is going to age like fine wine, and I am absolutely willing to take egg on my face if I’m wrong.

[forcebook]

Hello there, do you mind sharing your favorite bls of 2024? Thanks!

hi! honestly i suck at keeping track of shows and ranking them asdfghjkl i want to keep better track next year tho and maybe even make some celebratory gifsets but we shall see!

and since you asked for it, i decided to check mdl and do a deep dive on which shows have aged well in my mind and score lmao

my top rated dramas of 2024 are:

love for love’s sake

my only 5 stars drama of the year. doesn’t surprise me at all. this show took me completely my storm at the beginning of the year. it has such a compelling story and it’s so efficient on so many levels. but most importantly, it sticks the landing. it gives closure to a story that wasn’t even finished. and it does so well. the definition of lightning in a bottle!

love in the big city

this show made me feel emotions unknown to humanity so i get my rating asdfghjkl felt really personal to me. it is also incredibly efficient and very necessary!

knock knock boys!

i said it halfway through its run and i’ll say it again: one of the best bls of 2024. no wonder i rated it this high asdfghjkl within its premise it promised very little and delivered soooo much with some incredible takes. while i love when bls do new things, to me a story told well is fantastic regardless of how cliché it might be to some. and knock knock boys manages to feel very familiar but also very refreshing with the way it handled some topics. super funny and it stuck the landing to me. in a completely different way from love for love’s sake but very satisfying!

jack & joker: u steal my heart!

this is the thai bl of the year to me. for all the conversations it started, interesting characters, refreshing plot and also for existing purely on the love and dedication of its creators. while it is not perfect, i do hope that when we look back on 2024, we see it as the year of jack and joker

century of love

i’ve loved daouoffroad since love in translation. i was a bit skeptical of century of love at first but i ended up loving it a lot. i’m also not surprised at all this made my top 5 asdfghjkl

now i would like to add a few shows that haven’t finished airing yet but had most of their run in 2024 and i’m pretty sure they’re going to be in top rated dramas

miseinen (our youth)

it is the japanese bl of the year to me. hands down. i could rant but at the same time i have no words asdfghjkl this show goes beyond efficiency or even sticking the landing (which i hope they do), but it’s the whole vibe. because while incredibly sad, you can see how much love and care exists in it. the characters are so alive and so complex and beautiful and godddd i love them. 10/10 no notes

see your love

came out of nowhere promising very little and delivered one of the best bls of 2024 imo. i don’t even remember when was the last time i felt compelled to gif a taiwanese bl but this show is sooo inspiring and fun and important. i just love it

caged again

this show promised nothing except wacky plot and delivered such a hilarious and compelling and heartfelt story. i love when i get these little surprises. shall live on in my heart

honorable mentions:

let's eat together, aki and haru 2: more please!

my only other 5 stars of the year. but it’s a movie so i didn’t include it up there. still. it’s a nearly flawless execution of a beautiful genre that i love: queer stories revolving around food and domesticity. it delivered exactly what it promised efficiently and i loooooove it so much!!!!!

sugar dog life

also came out of nowhere promising nothing and delivered a really solid little story, also revolving around food and domesticity. can you tell i’m biased lmao

the rebound

BALL IS LIFE!!!!!! we need more bls about sports. asap. we don’t have enough!!!! and this show was a surprise to me. i ended up super invested for the most part and i do think it stands out in the tiny little corner of bl sports therefore it deserves an honorable mention

blue canvas of youthful days

chinese bls always have a special place in my heart for fighting so hard to exist. this one is no exception. it got taken down when it first started airing and i’m glad they managed to release all of it eventually. it’s far from being perfect but i was still thoroughly invested in it. i love the main couple with my entire heart. and i’m soooooo grateful they got their happy ending!!

monster next door

as a deeply introverted person, this is the representation i needed asdfghjkl it felt refreshing and a conversation worth having about respecting introverts and other people’s ways of living. plus diew is autistic to me (source: i’m autistic) and it was an overall good show!!! bigpark my beloveds!!

and that’s it! thank you for asking 💕

[everythingseasoning]

Heyo!

I was a lil curious whether you have SatoSugu ship fics written. I haven't read much of it and also because I dropped so many because of 18+ stuff and I don't like the interpretations of the characters.

So far, I am loving your take on both Gojo and Geto — have both your analyses saved to look at again when I'm writing. They're both amazing, I'm telling you.!

I know I could just yk, scroll around but I feel like hearing from the awesome person themselves is better.

Anyway, hope you're having a good day/night! :D

Hey! :) First of all, thank you so much for your praise on my JJK Character analysis!! ☹️🫶 I spent a decent amount of time thinking about these characters, trying to understand how they think, why they do/did what they did! It’s a huge compliment to hear and know that you’re using them as reference!! It’s so rewarding to know that the posts I released into the void have some sort of impact/that they’re appreciated. I’m still learning more about them as time goes on, too!

Suguru Analysis here, and Satoru Analysis here, for anyone who wants to read it!

Secondly, no, I haven’t written any satosugu stuff. Maybe one day? It’s an interesting thing to think about, how the two might interact if they ever met one on one after their fallout (prior to geto invading Jujutsu Tech ofc). I actually am going to make a third analysis post on the mischaracterization of Gojo in the JJK fandom, especially with Satosugu. People tend to completely erase Gojo’s strengths and personality in certain fan takes. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate ships, but I think that people reduce Gojo to a sniveling mess of a man hung up on his ex best friend/lover, when that’s really not the case— Gojo’s strength is his ability to move forward, regardless of who he loses. Gege said this himself, that Gojo knows anyone can die at any point. Gojo was a man who was raised to be a weapon, shouldered a huge responsibility, and in order to do so, he couldn’t be the sensitive and clingy type of guy that people write in their fics (which sucks to hear if you’re emotionally invested in him, and people often don’t wanna exit their delusions). This doesn’t mean that Gojo isn’t touchy-feely, he def can be, but emotionally? He isn’t clingy. He could’ve been a WONDERFUL yandere character based on his childhood/teenage isolation, but Gojo didn’t have an incredibly strong sensitivity for others. That’s why he didn’t turn into a villain. He was, ultimately and unfortunately, a successful product, shaped by the people who treated him as less than human. Or that’s my current take, at least.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

Scams, Fakes, Performance, & Belief

Peaceful Property: On Sale, ep. 4

This week's episode was filled with fakes: online order scams, magicians, compromised democratic processes, and a fake ghost. What reasons do we have to believe in anything? Everything is just an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes while the rugs get pulled out from under us so others can make a quick buck and protect their own hide. Who wants to be fooled by all the shams?

Pangpang does. Jan Ployshompoo has been fantastic in this role, and she got to devour this episode. Jan specializes in a 'camp' performance style that's easy to undervalue. 'Camp' acting involves overacting the characters and emotions, and lesser actors often approach it with self-awareness and cynicism. Jan understands my favorite note on camp that Susan Sontag wrote.

“56. Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges, the little triumphs and awkward intensities of “character.” . . . Camp taste identifies with what it is enjoying. People who share this sensibility are not laughing at the thing they label as “a camp,” they’re enjoying it. Camp is a tender feeling.”

The tender affection in Jan's 'camp' hits the themes of this episode home (no pun intended) because she infuses compassion for her over-the-top characters. They get to have range and reasons for their shallowness.

Pangpang's manic overperformance as a social-media influencer has been all about naively buying into every gimmick for herself and from others. Home, probably from his own similarities, points out to Peach how she's doing this as a form of compensation. All along she needed to believe in something because she needed to believe in her brother, to believe when no one else would in his debilitating fear and grief. She didn't need evidence to believe he saw ghosts as he said. She needed to believe she could be there for him even if she didn't know how. Pangpang chooses enchantment because staying true to her brother and her own feelings of loss over their parents are more important than being the winner of some existential argument.

The problem of deception lies at the heart of performance, and I often have a sense that performers and production crews invest a little more when they have to address it (Foei Patara who played Chobkol GAVE!). They have to prove that there is value and truth in the make-believe and assisting people in doing it. For a while, they need their audience to return to the magic of childhood so that they'll clap to show they believe in fairies when Tinkerbell's light begins to fade.

I loved how Peaceful Property symbolized this return to innocence as an egg, a kind of spiritual rebirth. If we want to believe in the magic of fantasy (Kan), the potential in ourselves (Peach), and the value of others (Home), we have to let go of our guarded cynicism. It won't eliminate the harsher truths of reality. They'll arrive one way or another. But we don't need to be the person who crushes our own dreams or who crush others' dreams just because we're scared of being vulnerable. We need to be people like Pangpang who want to believe and help others on their journey to believing good things are possible.

[myfandomrealitea]

I know this is probably a wild generalization, but I don’t know if I can be in a community if they’re gonna say it’s okay for an adult in their 20s to write erotic fanfiction about a REAL 16 year old and a 20 year old. I understand fictional characters, because they’re not real, but RPF of minors seems like another thing completely.

I'm personally not invested in or interested in RPF of minors, but frankly the literal core value of proshipping is simply not inserting yourself into what other people do in terms of fiction, so.

You can disagree with it all you like, it doesn't necessarily make you 'not proship' as long as you're not sending people hate or trying to tell them they can't do it. There are plenty of people who are proship who draw a personal line at RPF involving minors. I know people who enjoy RPF of all ages but draw the line at topics like non-con when it pertains to those people/ships.

If it makes you feel any better, the anti community also, in a wild generalization, weaponizes rape videos and literal child pornography, believes in doxxing and stalking, supports suicide baiting and hounding.... Really, on each side there's the bad and ugly. Being proship doesn't strictly mean you enjoy or even condone or are invested in common themes and subjects under the 'protection' of the label. You're not a more morally clean or good person for being on either side.

Being proship simply means you know they're going to do it, you at least somewhat respect their right to do it, and you're not going to tell them to kill themselves over it.

Which honestly, feel like pretty basic requirements of critical thinking and human decency. As I said, I'm not invested in RPF about minors, but I simply curate my online space so I don't see it.

(Also, RPF is fictional still. Its quite literally in the name. Real person fiction.)

[theunsinkableship1]

Being a Lukola Shipper When You’re Prone to Seasickness

Dear Lukola Shippers,

This journey isn’t always smooth sailing, but here we are, navigating the high seas together. So, I have a question for you: do you want to jump overboard, reach for a life jacket, or stay the course with us? Personally, I’m committed to this ship, and I’m here to tell you why.

First, I should clarify that I’m not usually one to get attached to celebrity relationships. For me, it’s always been about the work, the art, the characters, the stories actors bring to life. I believe that celebrities are people, flawed like the rest of us, and I generally avoid placing expectations on people I don’t personally know. They are humans and not idols. And yet, here I am, invested in this one connection. This is the first time I’ve actively rooted for a real-life relationship between public figures, and it’s certainly unexpected. But the connection between Nicola and Luke feels unique, something so rare and beautiful. I may be wrong in the end, but I feel so strongly about it that I’d be willing to stay on this ship even if I’m the last one standing.

There may or may not be other connections in their lives, other relationships that we as fans don’t see or fully understand. But that doesn’t diminish the genuine bond we’ve seen between them, them being in other relationships now is inconsequential in the belief that they should be together but in the end it’s their choice. It’s a bond that’s been visible over years, from interviews and behind-the-scenes moments to mutual praise that speaks to a deep friendship and mutual admiration. Sure, there could be reasons they’re not a couple right now, timing, career priorities, personal choices. And if they never become more than friends, that’s their decision. But what we’ve seen and felt over the years is hard to ignore. It’s as if we’ve been on this journey with them, waiting for their story to unfold. And it feels like we’ve been waiting for years for it, in fact we’ve been “wainting” for years and their journey might take even more years. It’s frustrating because we know that life is short, and they should just go for it We don’t know why they’re not a couple yet, at least officially If they don’t end up together, it will feel like a missed opportunity, like letting go of something too rare to find again.

The discourse surrounding their relationship is seemingly endless and exhausting. Some people dismiss or belittle their bond, saying it’s “just friendship” or a simple work connection. But if you look beyond the surface, there’s a history of moments and words exchanged that show a depth not common in everyday friendships. To dismiss this as “ordinary” feels shortsighted. If you are here, you can at least believe what they’ve said and continue to say about each other. They are coworkers but also friends.  Some of us believe that they are more than friendly. Sure, we don’t have to agree, but at the very least, we can acknowledge the special quality of what they have. I sometimes envy future generations who may read about this in biographies, finally able to understand the whole picture that’s unfolding now, without the guesswork. The feelings are real, but the reality of the situation feels surreal, and that’s not insignificant. The “roller-coaster” dynamic filled with highs and lows, ambiguous moments, and mixed signals points towards deeper emotional entanglements than simple friendship. It mirrors dynamics more commonly associated with romantic connections that are still evolving or are unacknowledged publicly, where feelings may remain under the surface.

What makes this journey frustrating is the unkindness and judgment that sometimes comes with fandom. People criticize or leave negative comments not only about Nicola and Luke but also about those close to them. This negativity is hurtful and unnecessary, and I don’t condone it. True fans can root for a relationship without crossing boundaries or resorting to hate. And in the end, Nicola and Luke don’t owe us any explanations. They didn’t sign up to give away their private lives, but it might be helpful for them to consider how they interact with their fans. An unambiguous stance might spare us all some drama in the future, perhaps choosing to keep more personal moments off social media and I’m not talking about what they’re not putting out themselves, or maybe clarifying the boundaries between personal and professional interactions. This isn’t about blaming them but rather acknowledging that parasocial relationships are complicated, and even one-sided relationships come with a kind of social contract. Considerate is the word for both sides.

So, where do I stand? I’m here on this ship. Their story may or may not unfold the way we hope, but as long as there’s a glimmer of possibility, I’ll keep cheering them on. They are, after all, just people with lives, choices, and relationships outside of what we see. But for me, this journey is worth it, because in a world often filled with shallow connections, what Nicola and Luke share feels like a breath of fresh air, something real, rare, and worth rooting for. I’m on this ship and I will go down with it.

[darcytaylor]

We're screaming into the void, babe. This is all about people trying to meet their own unmet emotional needs through strangers because their lives look more important or glamorous than their own. It isn't rational, it never was. I've given up on this fandom.

I agree - there’s a lot of truth in how unmet emotional needs can lead people to project onto celebrities, especially when they bring relatable characters to life. Nicola and Luke took their characters and created something very relatable that it feels almost tangible, like something that could happen to anyone. That connection is a big part of what makes storytelling so powerful, and I understand why people find comfort and inspiration in it. It just gets tricky when people become so deeply invested that they start to demand certain narratives and believe things about others. We must remember that we don’t know them personally.

I stopped being a silent observer of the fandom after my long-term relationship ended - I was looking for a place to connect with others and write about things that made me happy. Bridgerton/Polin/Nicola/Luke, became that space for me. But then the 'papgate' situation with Luke happened, and I saw the intense emotions it stirred up. People were upset, and emotions were all over the place. I wanted people to know that some of those feelings may be valid, and I shared my perspective on why I thought people were disappointed and frustrated. My hope was to let people know they weren’t alone in feeling this way, while also gently encouraging everyone to take a step back and consider the situation with a bit more calm.

I say this all of the time (I even said it in a previous paragraph), but it’s important to remember that we don’t truly know Nicola or Luke - what we know best are the characters they play. Even though we’ve seen months of promo and their authentic chemistry and enjoyment of each other’s company, that’s still work, and they’re surrounded by their characters the entire time. I don’t think the promo tour was all just PR - I personally think it’s clear they have a genuine bond, make each other laugh, and enjoy being around each other. But that doesn’t mean we know who they are privately - we just have a basic, public-facing idea of them as individuals.

The reason I keep posting the things I do is because I believe that even if I can get one person to look at this whole situation and celebrity culture from a slightly different angle, it’s worth it. I don’t think my word is the end-all-be-all, but I do think I have a healthy mindset in all of this (I hope so anyway).

Nicola and Luke are real people, with lives and experiences beyond the storylines and press tours. By letting go of any expectations or assumptions about how they should live their lives and how they do live their lives, we allow them to be fully human. This gives us the space to appreciate them without boxing them into our own narratives.

[animeyanderetalker]

In no particular order, which five characters from Hunter x Hunter do you believe have the highest probability of being yandere if they were to develop an attraction to someone?

Those are the ones I could think of spontaneously.

I feel like Kurapika would have a good possibility of turning possessive and very overprotective over the person he starts gaining feelings for. The massacre of his own clan has left him scarred and set on revenge so he would be much more careful and paranoid if he would fall in love with someone. He has made an enemy of the Phantom Troupe by killing Uvogin and Pakunoda and also using his Chains on Chrollo to make him unable to use his Nen abilities. He knows that the Phantom Troupe is ruthless and probably wouldn’t be afraid to use you against him and that thought is going to haunt him.

Hisoka just won’t let someone go the moment they catch his interest so god forbid if this menace actually gains genuine feelings for someone. As genuine as he can go at least. He literally won’t leave that person alone and worst is that there’s no way to get rid of him. Threats don’t work and he’s too smart to get caught by the police or he just kills them. Hisoka has no morals and his loyalty lies in what catches his interest. Rejections, insults, threats and tears don’t work on him either. Instead Hisoka is oddly invested in whatever emotion he can squeeze out of you and he’s going to be the asshole who makes you cry on purpose. He’s so persistent and is going to be so annoyingly clingy too so there goes any sense of privacy either. He is terrifying because he has no shame in killing people nor expressing his perverted desires to you.

Start playing freaking Hellfire from Hunchback of Notre Dame for Shaiapouf and his first stages of interest in that person. He’s part of the Royal Guard, he was born to serve the Chimera Ant King and no one else so him gaining an attraction to someone that isn’t his King defies genetics. That is going to be a sting for him, all the more if we’re going with a scenario where Meruem is dead and Shaiapouf already survived. His King was killed by a human, the species that was supposed to be beneath Meruem and his Royal Guards so for Pouf this would be salt in the fresh wound. It’s an utter humiliation and he plans multiple times to kill you only to be unable to do so. There is a paranoia within him because he has failed the one thing he was born for so in a way he’s projecting on his darling by initially forcing them to act like the royalty Pouf is supposed to serve before the genuine infatuation kicks in and he embraces it completely. His paranoia and trauma will never let him let go of his darling, he’s going to be so overbearing and controlling whilst playing their servant.

Pitou is a very similar story to Shaiapouf. Them gaining an attraction for someone goes against their natural instinct to protect the Chimera Ant King yet it’s still happening. Since Pitou is also partially a cat, there is going to be a lot of curiosity involved and much less hostility than with Pouf. Neferpitou’s mind tells them to seek out answers for those weird feelings that their darling awakes inside of them and no one can tell them to stop. Pitou is possessive over their darling and will guard them and the place they’re put in with literal teeth and claws. There is pain and trauma if we once again assume a world where Meruem and Komugi both died so for a while they view darling as a toy to forget those feelings until they realize that their emotions for them are actually sincere. That’s when darling really won’t be able to ever escape.

He has shown a fascination for the way humans work so imagine how obsessed he would be with the person he gains an interest in. It’s unexpected because the only people Chrollo has ever cared about are the members of his Phantom Troupe but that is what makes his darling so precious and special. He yearns to know every crevice of their soul to the point where he feels almost incomplete if he doesn’t as the mere feeling of not knowing becomes a black tear in his being. He’s smart, he is observing and at one point he knows your every habit and reaction yet he’s like a glass with no bottom as he keeps taking everything about you in to engrave it forever in his black soul. You are the rarest treasure the thief has ever found and he’s going to commit massacres to ensure that you never leave his side.

[youjibyers]

Honestly this sounds ridiculous but sometimes I think the constant bowl cut jokes that the ga and reddit make about Will are basically them just coping and seething at the idea of Will being an actually important character. It’s like every time they only choose to focus on how silly they think his haircut is, they progressively devalue his character and take him less and less seriously. And it kinda seems like they’re just trying to convince themselves that Will could not possibly be important to the narrative, could not possibly be explored in a deep and significant way-not because they correctly understand the story but because they really do not want a gay male character to be focused on in “their” show. The amount of attention Will and his sexuality get already is probably too much for some of them.

Because stranger things is so mainstream, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people just subconsciously view it as a “normal people show” even though it started as a show about/for outcasts. Thus, the more focus that’s given to a gay male character, the more it becomes a “gay show,” and if their “normal show” starts becoming a “gay show,” it will make a part of the audience feel duped and “forced” into confronting a subject that makes them uncomfortable: homosexuality (and its associated struggles). And a lot of these people would be especially angry at this development because they can’t even comprehend that competent, male creators might willingly tell a story about a gay boy, so they end up assuming that the creators must have been pressured to force the story into taking a turn for the gay, or that they’ve been brainwashed by the woke agenda-after all, they couldn’t just be progressive people who sat down and simply decided naturally that they wanted to explore homosexuality as a major theme in a sci-fi horror show from the start. That’s not even allowed, right? Gay stuff should be contained and quarantined in gay-specific genres like a disease, right?

Anyway, I just think it’s maybe not a coincidence that I see way less “reducing Will to his haircut” behavior from people who are invested in the complexity and humanity of his character compared to the people who clearly want him to stay small and hidden, out of sight and out of mind.

[misterpseudonym]

not to have opinions on the internet but all the billford discourse (largely on other platforms like tiktok) is so weird and a little bit fucked, there’s obviously going to be the selection of people who belittle the turmoil ford went through because of bill + insist bill deserves a second chance with him, it’s weird and it comes with fandoms this big. but there’s so much more nuance than “they’re toxic this is a proship”

of course they were toxic! nobody’s denying it! one of my favourite things about this is the fact that ford cut him off and started healing and moving on. one of my other favourite things is the tragedy of it, the what if. bill and ford understand each other whether they acknowledge it or not; their “deformities” dictated the trajectory of their lives but it drove ford to be ambitious where it drove bill to ruin. the idea that if bill had just seen that? if he hadn’t lied? the missed chances? crazy. so good

but when people complain about the exploration of that dynamic, it makes a really weird idea that you should Never Ever Be Invested in the Fictional Depiction of a Nasty, Wrong, Unbalanced Relationship

like you’re ALLOWED not to like it but there’s always going to be people whom the fucked up and messy strike an emotional chord with! because it’s complicated and most humans have feelings about this kind of stuff! they’re allowed to project! this does NOT mean they are going around and looking at real abusive relationships and saying THE NARRATIVE INTRIGUE

if anything it makes me nervous to write these elements into my own stories because people online seem to demand that you portray them only with this ultra serious black and white approach. a character can be rotten and manipulative and abusive and you can explore why they are like that, that they are a complex being with emotions, without some sort of reconciliation! that’s OKAY!!! someone being terrible doesn’t mean their feelings weren’t real and true, it just means they were terrible. and the implication of otherwise is like maybe a little bit dangerous??!??

i think it’s also weird to imply people can’t make jokes, because the source material is comedic. we’re talkin bout top hat triangle with a bow tie

[doudouma]

Hello hello! I hope you’re doing well! Okay, so I’m not sure if requests are open, so feel free to ignore this if they aren’t!!!

Any character(or characters) of your choice comforting their s/o as they’re turned into a demon (perhaps they take on a sea monster-ish look!), because I imagine most physical changes would be pretty painful. S/o is still entirely cognizant and not feral afterwards of course, we don’t need too much angst! But perhaps just a closer look on how your favorite(s) would help their s/o through the process and the shift itself!

Thank you so much and have a wonderful day/night!

“from human to demon, i still love you”

how characters would comfort their s/o turning into a demon! (reader) _______________________________________________

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◆ hello hello! thank you so much for requesting, dearest ! i’m doing well, thank you♡ my requests are always open, unless i state otherwise〜

this is a unique request of (former) human!reader turning into a demon, and how their s/o comfort them during the turning process〜

a possible slight angst warning, slight mentions of killing. my apologies, my dear lotuses.

i will keep it gender neutral.❀ 〜

a/n : i had no idea how many characters to write for, or who to choose〜！ so i did 3 demon slayers/hashiras, and 3 demons! i also tried to do some of my other favs!

╚══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╝

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

giyuu

oh goodness…

he wouldn’t know what to believe, and he would honestly be on the verge of tears..

no.. he couldn’t bring himself to k!ll his beloved s/o, could he now?

he will just hug you tightly.. hugging you and telling you to just breathe and relax♡

he knows he can’t do anything to stop the process, so he’ll feel a bit useless and upset.

you being cognizant will definitely help him relax, meaning he doesn’t have to hurt you for trying to eat him!

once the transformation finishes, he’ll ask you if you still remember him just incase, with tears still in his eyes..

you say yes, and he’ll look at you with the prettiest smile, and say “thank you..”

he would trust urokodaki with you the most, and would look into getting a box or a special room for you asap! he would even let you decorate it〜

will most definitely beat himself up internally for letting this happen to you, even if you’re safe with him now..

mitsuri

my, my!!

at first, she’d be a crying mess!

how did this happen?! is this her fault?! will you try to hurt her or others?!

the more she thinks, the more she cries! until she realizes.. that you’re more in pain than she is!

she’ll run over to you, and gently put you in her lap, and telling you positive things, and memories you two share〜 she’s so cute!

she’ll start to tear up again telling you over and over again that she’s sorry, and when you tell her that everything will be okay, and that you’re aware of everything, she officially calms down〜

now that she knows that the transformation is done, she’ll carry you to safety, and lets you sleep in her lap as she talks to kagaya. (same pose in the gif!♡)

he’ll let her keep you, and she’ll be relieved!! she’ll invest in a special hideout for you, and even make it pretty〜

she’ll love it if you become friends with nezuko, it’s adorable!

will protect you more than ever♡

tanjiro

oh, poor tanjiro.. first his sister into a demon and now his s/o! how much more can this boy handle〜

well.. at the very least.. he’ll know how to handle you, this wouldn’t be his first rodeo…

he’ll have you in his lap, with his katana sheath ready to place in your mouth, but realize he wouldn’t need to do so.

he’d keep apologizing, asking you if you’re okay, telling you to focus on breathing instead of the pain, and reassuring you that you’ll be back human in no time.

definitely he would cry, and begs you for forgiveness for not knowing what to do!

he would ask for the help of nezuko, maybe another demon that you trust could help〜?

she will most likely cradle you and hum a lullaby she likes. now tanjiro is relieved, now knowing you’re okay and also that nezuko has your back♡〜!

once the transformation is over, he’ll try to comfort you by saying that you look beautiful, while transporting you to safety〜

definitely he’ll feel regretful. but also grateful.

grateful that you’re safe, aware, harmless, and alive♡

kokushibo

ooo.. such a calm boy〜

he would take you to a safe place, and lie you down, with his hand resting on your arm or shoulder.

he wouldn’t want to move you too much, he knows how the pain could be.

very observant, observing to see when should he should step in more. he wouldn’t want you suffering long at all. he went through 3 days of it

he would provide you with anything! want blood? you got it! want a blanket? got two! want human food? he’ll run and get some! want cuddles? you’re in his arms! the pain too much? gentle kisses on its way!♡

wouldn’t be surprised that your cognizant, he knew how much power his s/o could hold〜

once the transformation is finished, he would praise you on how well you held up, and offers you a massage.

accepting his offer, he would give you a caring massage while telling you all the things you two can do together forever, as demons♡

gyutaro

honestly, he wouldn’t know what to expect..

gyutaro naturally has a habit of lashing out, so he would probably lash out. how could this happen to his only s/o?!

but once he realizes that they’re in pain, he turns into a soft baby〜

he would baby you, thanks to his habit forming from his little sister, but that isn’t a bad thing! especially not now

he would cradle you, give you kisses, telling you to focus on his voice, asking if the pain is increasing or decreasing, giving you anything you need, and telling you to try not to panic and trying to follow his own advice on that part.

he will absolutely be astonished at the fact that you’re cognizant, and praise you for it. he hasn’t seen it happen too often〜

with you being now a demon just recovering from a painful transformation, he would tell you to eat - whether it’s humans or human food (or nothing) - and rest. he wants your health to be top tier so you can protect yourself♡

he would become a bit more paranoid with you being a demon now, not only because of slayers, but also because he doesn’t want you becoming one of muzans minions… don’t fear! he’ll do your work for you♡

muzan

ooooh, also a calm boy!

he would be impressed by you being very cognizant, but wouldn’t say anything about it, especially since he's probably seen it before, but not often〜

would have you bedridden, with him staying by your side the whole time, because he wouldn’t want you overexerting yourself from the pain!

occasionally he would ask you if you’re alright, and caress your head or give kisses♡

on the outside, he may be just staring at you with his stoic face… but on the inside, he’s worried if you’ll be okay!

if you want him to talk to distract you, he’ll tell you stories about other unique demon transformations that he’s witnessed over centuries!

once he notices that your transformation is finishing, he will feel more comfortable touching you.

he’ll tell you that you held up well, before giving you gifts you may like to help you feel better and recover quicker〜！

almost like a “you did it” present, but not quite, you know?

tells you to rest, and asks if you want to eat anything at the moment. most demons must go out and survive on their own almost instantly after transformation, but he lets you rest.

because he loves you.

as you start to relax, he’ll tell you all the great things demons can do, to uplift your mood♡

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my, my！my lovely lotuses, i want to sincerely apologize for disappearing for quite some days. being honest, i just wanted to rest. i have more requests that i will get out on the the near future!

. . .

per usual, these were fun to write, and i really enjoyed this! thank you for your support and patience, my precious flowers❀〜

[artist-issues]

please trash Marvel's Phase Four with your mad skills, I hate it so much (the Hawkeye TV show was the best thing that came out of it) and Im in the mood to have someone share my rage over it lol

It’s been so long since I’ve seen most of them! Sorry. I’ll try to put my vague disappointments in them from back then into words:

Black Widow: The main problem with this one, if I remember correctly, is that there’s no build-up to Natasha’s connections with her family, or the other Widows. We like and accept Yelena because of the good writing and Florence Pugh’s charm; we like and except her parents for the same reasons—but do we feel for Natasha when she’s figuring out how much to love and worry about them? No. Not like we did when Pepper had to choose to blow up the roof Tony was on in the final battle of Iron Man. Not like we felt when Steve lost Bucky. Why? Because the whole “family,” all the “other Widows,” have no real, human depth to them, and no time for us to see that humanity displayed.

The dad’s a caricature, not a guy we can relate to. So’s the mom. And the other Widows are non-characters; they’re pretty faces representative of a conflict, who can have tragic music played over their death scenes so we remember “why Natasha fights.”

Pepper and Tony fear for each other’s safety and wonder what they are to each other, just like the sisters are supposed to in Black Widow. But we care about Pepper and Tony, because we’ve seen what a day at the office looks like with them. We’ve seen their normal. We’ve seen who they are as people, and how they interact on a normal level—so that when the extreme interactions come, we’re already invested. Black Widow doesn’t have that. It’s “weird caricature group gets turned into weirder super-spies and they spend a few minutes worrying about each other out of nowhere at the climax of the film.” That was my impression of that one. But I only saw it once, and liked it better than the others.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Normal human moments, but way too much time spent on retroactively revealing layers of backstory. Heres the dad’s backstory. Just kidding, that’s not all of it, here’s some more. And here’s the part you missed. And here’s the backstory of this magical world. Just kidding, here’s some more. And here’s backstory on the main character. Sorry, he forgot to reveal the Big Emotional Part, we saved it for the pre-climax, so have a little more backstory.” You’re so busy keeping all that straight that you don’t have as much capacity leftover to care about the main characters, even if those main characters do have some human moments to appreciate.

Compare it to Thor. Both movies have “hard-to-swallow magical realms existing near the Normal World.” But not both movies set the audience up to accept, believe, and keep up with that. Thor does. Shang-Chi doesn’t.

The whole introduction to Thor carefully tells you the full “outer boundaries,” the hardest stuff to swallow about the magical world of Asgard. And it helps you understand and swallow those things well before you need to be really invested in the emotional reactions of the characters. In the first half of the movie, they neatly go: “Guy walking out of a tornado and getting hit by a car, seemingly impossibly; he must not be normal. Let’s show you why. Ready? Here: 1) Frost Giant war + how this realm relates to the normal world, 2) Asgard & the king’s sons, plus their different motives 3) how the rainbow bridge and Thor’s banishment works. Got it? Back to the Normal Story.”

By the time you’re jettisoned into the Normal World part of the movie, you care, emotionally, about everything Thor and Jane care about, from her losing her lab equipment to him thinking his mother hates him—without having to take breaks in their story to remember how a rainbow bridge works or what the Frost Giants want, etc. But Shang Chi is all over the place, back and forth, up and down, three layers of tragic hard-to-believe backstory on top of each other. …And it delivers all that backstory in bits and pieces, as interruptions to the “normal world” or “present adventure” part of the story.

Plus, the “normal world/present adventure” part isn’t even that good, I’m so sorry to say it. Our previous heroes had normal-human obstacles to overcome, sure, but those relatable obstacles were still severe. Big character flaws that would come back to haunt them. Steve wonders if he’s all alone in his resolve and responsibility—and that keeps coming back up no matter what his circumstances are. Tony wonders if he can ever accomplish his full potential and make up for his past mistakes—and that keeps coming back up, no matter the circumstances.

But you’re telling me I need to not only believe that Shaun and Katy “wonder if they’ll ever take life seriously enough, like adults”—not only believe that—but that after this adventure, that’s the struggle he’ll always have to overcome?

Seems to me it should be something more along the lines of “have mercy instead of controlling everything through conquest like my father.” They kinda tried to do that. But the problem is, it doesn’t connect back to his “relatable human flaw.”

Steve had to realize he wasn’t alone fighting Nazis and Hydra and Thanos—sure—in big moments, like the one where Shaun chooses to spare his father. But guess what? Steve also had to learn to overcome his flaw in little moments, too. He has to realize he’s not alone in waiting for “the right partner;” Peggy is also committed to waiting. He has to choose to believe he’s not alone even though he’s a man-out of-time—by taking an active role in the present, by asking his neighbor out on a date.

Shaun’s little “when am I going to grow up and be an adult” thing only pops up in his human moments. It doesn’t have a parallel in his superhero moments. So then I don’t care as much, or relate as much, to his character.

Because honestly, not every member of the audience can even relate to worrying about that. Only young adults and teenagers. Maybe some 30-40 year-olds. But it’s not a universal thing, like Steve’s broad loneliness or Tony’s broad pride.

Eternals - Without a doubt the most horrifyingly bad MCU movie I ever saw. Worse than Captain Marvel.

I don’t even know where to begin. This movie had no idea what it wanted to be, except a direct smack in the face to anyone who believes that humans should submit to a deity who made them and accept their purpose. Obviously that most closely fits the description of a Christian audience, but this movie really alienated audience members with worldviews that have any monotheistic religious leanings. Or just…audience members with a worldview that values humility, and service, and self sacrifice, and knows that love without this values is not actually love, in general.

The characters have no humanity. They lack depth. There’s a weird fixation on slow suffering and memory loss with Angelina Jolie’s character. Not one character is likeable because we spend barely any time with any of them. Not one is relatable because they do that whole “live for thousands of years” thing, without taking their time and showing us a believable version of ‘what’s normal” to these characters.

And like I said, the message is garbage. It’s appalling.

Spider-Man: No Way Home - This movie was good, I have no notes.

I have a brother who likes to say that the whole first half of the movie is worthless because you only care after the other Spider-Men show up, but I totally disagree, because the point of the movie was “who is (MCU) Peter Parker?” So at the beginning you have him trying to figure that out based on public opinion of Spider-Man and a college;s acceptance of him, and trying to fix his “image” of himself, essentially, so his life can go back to normal. Then by the climax he’s got two other Peter Parkers there, reminding him of what being “Peter Parker” means. You take responsibility to do what you can to help people, no matter what everybody else does. No matter what it costs you. That’s who Peter Parker is.

And they needed to speed-up the maturity level and raise the stakes of their particular version of Peter Parker, because he’s supposed to be a recurring part of this high-stakes universe they created—but they also needed him to return to feeling like a more traditional, “friendly neighborhood” Spider-Man, within that context. And they solved both those problems. And they did it with Andrew Garfield and Toby MacGuire, so I liked this movie, sorry.

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness - Stupid and wrong.

I have never liked Sam Raimi, but I didn’t have a problem with his editing style or over-the-top drama this time around. I had a problem with the way the characters were handled.

We still barely know Stephen Strange, and we certainly weren’t given the impression that his love interest from the first movie was the great love of his life, so that emotional thread in this movie was flimsy.

The America character was barely a character.

But the worst of the worst of it was Wanda.

You mean to tell me, Raimi, that the Wanda who was experimented on and used for her power from an early age would have willingly murdered a superpowered little girl in a demonic rite? You mean to tell me that the Wanda who just spent a whole expertly-written television show showing me that she’s learned she can’t manipulate people’s lives, and she’s willing to sacrifice her own happiness if it means sparing other people suffering—you mean to tell me that THAT Wanda, the one I’ve spent five stories over several years getting to know—you mean to tell me that Wanda read one vaguely evil book and now she’s willing to slaughter her friends and a little girl so she can steal children from other, weaker versions of her own sad self?

That doesn’t make any sense.

You COULD have it make sense. You could show me her corruption. Show me what the Darkhold’s doing to her. Show me how she got from point A (WandaVision’s ending) to Point B (murderous careless rampage and smiling at the thought of murdering a little girl.) Use your runtime to do that.

But no. We’re going to use our runtime to throw in pointless cameos with no build-up, no real weight or gravity, no genuine excitement. To play with out special effects and CGI. To spend lots of runtime on arbitrary horror-movie scenes and gore.

And then kill Wanda off? …What?! It was idiotic. It was so contrived. I felt like I was watching a forgettable DC movie, or a Batman movie where the star of the story is just shock-and-awe.

Thor: Love and Thunder - This movie couldn’t decide if it wanted to be funny or serious. So it failed at both. First Thor’s making a joky explanation retconning Jane, breaking up with him, as a silly rom-com parody. Oh, then he’s holding her in his arms crying and claiming he’d rather be with her than win a fight, like that’s the big momentous moment-of-change for his character.

Sorry, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you that Thor loved Jane. Because they barely show any serious, grounded, genuine, human affection to each other the whole movie. All I’ve seen is a parody of that, and de-masculatung mockery of Thor himself. You want me to believe he’s losing the love of his life and it’s devastating to him because he’s a human being with depth of emotion? Then don’t set him up as the star of a bad Will-Ferrell comedy.

And of course the “message” is crap. And every situation they get into is unbelievably stupid and unfunny. This is actually the movie that made me give up on Marvel.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - I didn’t see this movie. I love Leticia Wright, I’m on her side. But I had to give up on the MCU after Love and Thunder. I wanted to give up on it after Eternals, but I told myself I’d stick it out for the OGs (any movie about characters from the original Avengers squad or Guardians.)

The television shows during Phase 4 were all pretty good, for what they were, except for Moon Knight, in my opinion.

To sum it up: Phase 4 rushed everything, cut out the grounded human moments and feared all genuine displays of emotion in their characters. Instead they jammed in heavy action sequences, some more gore, and soulless, arbitrary, quick-flash cameos. The only exception was Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Thanks for asking! I could be open to changing these opinions; I’d have to go back and watch them over again, it’s been so long. But I think I’d rather put on wet socks, heel-to-toe, than watch Eternals or Multiverse of Madness, ever again.

[m--rtyr]

You and I share a lot of the same literary opinions so I want to know your opinion on this Some people are waaay too invested in a lot of the retelling and essentially remakes of mythology and not the actual history of the myths. For example, Hades and Persephone's origin, where she was literally kidnapped by the god, sure they might have had the "more stable" marriage compared to Zeus and Hera, but it still not great. (It is a mythological marriage from a culture that had horrible views on women)

Ares as the absolute bloodthirsty monster when he was originally a protector of women

Even the humans in myths aren't free from it when I see people get genuinely para-social fandom with Odysseus when analyzing the myth compared to the musical and video games that feature the character.

The modern interpretation of myths have made a lot of people forget the origins and should anyone base something on the original myth it gets extreme hate. I played a game where Persephone killed Hades because he kidnapped her, which is a valid interpretation and continuation of the myth. That is not saying one can't prefer or like the retellings, I find the more modern interpretation of the Hades and Persephone myth great (it is just the most common example rn), but people can't neglect the original myth.

I could go on a fucking tangent about the hades and Persephone myth.

Because it’s not even that, it’s literally called ‘Hymn to Demeter’… It’s about a woman literally defying the gods in order to get her daughter back from the underworld. It wasn’t a tale of an overbearing parent, but a loving one, she wasn’t against Hades and Persephone because age gaps, or whatever, she was against her daughter being taken away from her, or, in a metaphorical sense, dying. It was a tale to give power back to mothers and young girls forced into arranged marriages, where the daughters were taken away from their families, and it was also to make people feel less intimidated by death, as it also promised to the followers of Persephone intimate knowledge about the underworld.

But I’ll stop about that. I think some of the modern interpretations are cool, they just lack the meaning of the original tale.

I think a lot of modern retellings are trying too hard to make myths ‘comfortable’ and sanitised, instead of merely adapting them to the new context. They want Hades and Persephone without the work, so they make Demeter an overbearing parent, as it’s the best they can do to make Hades and Persephone ‘okay’.

I’m not very well-versed in other myths, but honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if similar issues ensued. I know some have changed certain things in order to get their point across, if they’re trying to emphasise certain points, which I think is excusable, to an extent. But when you’re changing something so *fundamental*, it gets so fucking jarring.

I also think retellings need to stop using such negative language about the original. ‘Feminist retelling’ ‘giving a voice to characters that didn’t originally have one’ and it’s not feminist or giving a voice to the voiceless, it just talks about the original in a really non-helpful way. It just gives people the idea that original myths are these terrible out-of-date stories and not the basis for so much modern literature.