#I’ve been very good about using the block on negative blogs or people I just don’t want to interact with

[rosicheeks]

i literally had to block someone bc so many mutuals were fawning over them and i was getting so mad about it 🥴 i feel you and i’m sorry you’re having a rough night🫶🏻

Honestly that’s not a bad idea 🤷🏽‍♀️

[flawseer]

In your last ask, you mentioned misgivings with Book 10's ending, and especially how it pertains to Winter. I absolutely agree, and I know why, but I wanna hear your thoughts on it, too: What's up with Book 10?

The following is a (very long) examination of my personal feelings with regards to the WoF second story arc finale. While it is based on what is in the text, this analysis will be interpretive and fill in blanks with my own thoughts. Keep that in mind.

Hahhhh... okay. Since mentioning it in my last post I’ve gotten several requests to talk about my feelings regarding the second arc finale. There’s probably no way around it then.

If you haven’t read that last post (it was admittedly very long, and so will this one be), I talked briefly about why I didn’t like that part of the story. I have to warn you now, this will likely be the most negative and dour post in the history of this blog. In a few parts it will sound like I hate Wings of Fire, and I want to say now, while I still have the chance, that I don’t. I love this series, thinking about its setting and characters brings me joy.

I also—very emphatically—want to make it clear that I have no ill will against Tui T. Sutherland. I’ve looked around other people’s stuff a bit and there are a huge number of posts wishing violence upon her or threatening her for doing things to her series that people don’t agree with. That is NOT what I am doing here, shit like that is NOT okay! While I will be critical of her choices, I still respect her effort of bringing this vibrant, wonderful world of dragons to all of us.

Also, obligatory last disclaimer: If you liked the finale, that is okay. You are valid for feeling that way. I’m here to share my point of view, not to demand people agree with everything I say. Just be warned that you most likely won’t enjoy what I have to say. If you don’t think you can handle that kind of criticism, this is your guilt-free opportunity to stop reading.

Otherwise, let's get into it.

CW: Discussion of parental abuse, depression, disease, and extreme acts of violence.

In defense of the finale

Before I start to systematically disassemble this narrative and get lost in a quagmire of negativity, let’s talk a bit about the circumstances that brought forth this part of the story. The plot of this arc was a mess from the moment animus magic was unshackled from the restrictions it had in the first arc, and from then on there was no longer any conceivable way to end this story in a clean way. Sutherland had created an invincible, unbeatable, omnipotent villain; he could read minds, see the future with perfect clarity, and anything he could imagine he could conjure into existence at any time with no cost to himself and no drawbacks. She was likely wracking her brain about how to resolve this impossible conundrum. What we got wasn’t good, but I believe nothing could have been. The foundation was rotting and by the fifth book it couldn’t bear the weight of the plot anymore.

The thing about animus magic in arc 2 is that it is so potent, so all-powerful, and so free of restraint that everyone who uses it also HAS to be a simpleton, or they would be able to break the plot immediately and become god. From the moment Darkstalker broke out of that mountain, he could have said “Any and all spells that are cast with the intention to harm me, interfere with my plans, or do something I don’t consent to will not work, from now on until forever”, and he would have instantly won. The strawberry would have fizzled out. The Darkstalker-blocking earrings would not have been created, and no one could have saved the Icewings. On the flipside, Turtle or Anemone could have said “I enchant the concept of animus magic itself to no longer obey Darkstalker”, and his threat would have been neutered. Point is, powers as potent and easy to use as this really need limitations, or they will quickly eat your plot alive.

I don’t envy the situation Sutherland was in at the time at all. If you’re an author, that kind of thing is a nightmare. It really is no wonder she decided to blow up animus magic for good in her next arc, even if I would have preferred it to get more healthy restrictions instead of killing it outright.

The Darkstalker age regression thing

Everyone has talked this part to death already, but if I am to write a thorough analysis of my feelings regarding this finale, I’m going to have to talk about it as well. I’m sorry if I end up repeating a lot of things you’ve already heard.

This final fate of Darkstalker, to have his memories wiped and be reset to an infant, is really uncomfortable. As far as I am aware, though correct me if I’m wrong, Sutherland said in an interview that she didn’t want Darkstalker to die because, in her view, he did not deserve to. We can debate here about the philosophical question of whether anyone is truly deserving of death, and the merits of “justice” and “punishment”, but in general, Wings of Fire did not seem to have any issues killing off its villains prior if they committed suitably terrible acts. That makes this moment stand out as noteworthy.

Who is Darkstalker then--and if we assume villains can be “deserving” and “not deserving” of death--what about him speaks in his favor, or against? The guy had a pretty crappy childhood, coming from a broken home (there is that inadequate parent theme again). He genuinely loved his sister and felt protective of her, and whenever he liked someone he wanted them to be happy and feel affirmed. The thing that Queen Diamond does to his mother is awful and he is justified in hating her for it. He is also portrayed as rather sympathetic in Moon Rising. When he asks Moon to find his scroll for him and not to leave him, he is not manipulating her, he is sincerely begging for her help. He is stuck somewhere underground, trapped in darkness, in a space so tiny that he can’t move. He remains that way for months, lonely and sad. If you just focus on these aspects, it’s easy to understand why he has so many fans who want him to see healthy and happy.

On the flipside, while he is dedicated to the happiness of his friends, he doesn’t always go for the most ethical way to achieve it. He tries to brainwash said friends without their consent whenever they exhibit behaviors he doesn’t like, or when he thinks he knows better and wants to “fix” them. He has very little regard for other people’s autonomy, lies to his loved ones with alarming frequency, and is unhealthily attached to the idea of power. Those things are certainly not good, but they are his character flaws. These are his demons; everyone has them and they make him a person. If this was all there was to it, he might still be a villain, but I’d argue he’d not be wholly irredeemable.

But there are things about him that take him beyond the pale. Things that go beyond the realm of just being misunderstood, or easily excusable.

He is possessive. He wants Clearsight and Fathom for himself, and for them to listen to him primarily. When Indigo makes it clear she doesn’t like him and cautions Fathom against trusting him, he deceives his friends and traps Indigo in a wood carving, just so he can isolate Fathom from his support network and manipulate him easier. He alters Clearsight’s mind to make her more agreeable and stop her from holding him accountable for his actions; while he thinks he loves her, he only loves an idealized version of her that is wholly devoted to and unquestioning of him. This is why, when he later forcibly overwrites Fierceteeth’s existence to recreate her (which is another horrific thing), he tries to excise the parts he finds undesirable to create a perfect version of his lover. But this caricature he has created in his head is not and can never be Clearsight, which frustrates his attempts.

He is vengeful. Not against people who have actually wronged him, like Queen Diamond. That would be questionable, but understandable. What makes this unacceptable is his frequent targeting of innocent people who just happen to be related to the person who wronged him in some esoteric way. He enchants a secret murder knife that kills random Icewings regardless of who they are or what they think about the Queen, just because the one who took his mother from him happened to share their tribe. He hates Turtle and wishes death upon him in Moon Rising just because he is a green Seawing, like Fathom was. And then there is the big one: He tries to kill all the Icewings who are alive in the present day, where Queen Diamond is long dead and none of them have ever even met her. Even his mother, who suffered from Diamond’s actions the most and has the most reason to hate her, is horrified and calls him out on that one.

And lastly, he is sadistic. He revels in torturing those he hates. He forces his father to disembowel himself, while the latter is fully aware and powerless to resist AND the man’s traumatized daughter is watching. Later he sends a magical plague to kill every single living Icewing sans one.

It should be noted that Darkstalker possesses virtually infinite magical power; whatever he declares, with very few exceptions, will happen. Even if he wanted them dead, he had the power to prevent unnecessary suffering. He could have said “Arctic, fall dead instantaneously”, or “Every Icewing will fall asleep and pass away peacefully,” but he didn’t. He wanted them to feel pain and pass away in the most wretched, agonizing ways he could imagine.

So what he chose to do instead is—and I want you to picture this for a moment—Darkstalker sat down, calmly, and said “Henceforth every living Icewing, excepting Prince Winter and those of hybrid blood, will fall ill with an incurable disease. This disease will cause heavy internal bleeding and make its victims cough up blood and waste away for a few days, followed by certain death.”

This spell does not discriminate with regards to who its victims are. The book glosses over the implications, but imagine the ramifications. Young children are notoriously frail, how many newborns got infected and died because of this? How many families were torn apart because they couldn’t get the magic earrings fast enough? Or accidentally got one earring less than there were family members and had to decide who has to die?

Most of the Icewings were physically cured by the earrings, but an experience like that sticks with you for the rest of your life. Somewhere surely, a dragonet watched as his mother put the earring on him and then slowly wasted away because she didn’t have one for herself.

It’s really easy to overlook how horrific this spell is because it isn’t shown or dwelt on. But the trauma, grief, and suffering it caused must have been immeasurable.

And none of those victims have ever even met the person Darkstalker wanted to get revenge on. None of those deaths meant anything to anyone.

The attempted death toll and scale of the calamity here puts even Scarlet to shame. The ones who come closest to it were Queen Battlewinner and Morrowseer with their attempted Rainwing extermination. All three of those died for what they did. Gives you some food for thought for sure.

Peacemaker’s burden

Despite just airing all of his dirty laundry and declaring him an irredeemable villain, I actually do have a lot of sympathy for Darkstalker still. His story is really sad. He was a child born with an amount of power that nobody should possess, and it corrupted him to the point where it destroyed his life before it began. His parents were always fighting and no matter how good his intentions were, he was unable to understand why he couldn’t hold on to his friends and relationship. He kept making mistakes, then made bigger mistakes to fix those, until his hands were covered in blood and he couldn’t stop anymore. My belief is that, after he wakes up in the present and realizes Clearsight is dead, he loses his reason for living and becomes completely lost in his grief.

Therefore, my opinion is that it would have been appropriate for him to die. If not to punish him, then to finally grant him reprieve from all that rage and pain, and let him rest. I think that would have been a dignified end.

But instead he got turned into a baby. ... And then they decided to magically erase his father’s blood from him? I don’t know what it is, but something about that Icewing erasure makes my skin crawl?

The thing that turns this baby twist from weird into highly unsettling is the context. Darkstalker’s mind is erased, then modified into a new person via animus magic. This is the technique a lot of this arc’s villains used to victimize Hailstorm, Queen Ruby, Peril, Kinkajou, Fierceteeth, and Winter. The same technique is now used again, by the heroes, which is a dangerous thing to have your protagonists do if you want them to remain morally upright.

It is also very reckless, because in almost all of these instances, animus mind alteration has been shown to be very unreliable. The spells seem to wear down over time and are susceptible to partial breaking upon encountering certain strong stimuli. Hailstorm—while trapped as Pyrite—seems to retain trace amounts of his former memories, which is why Pyrite is subconsciously drawn to Winter and clings to him all the time. Ruby is able to ignore half of her conditioning because her familial love for her son partially overpowers the magic. Qibli is just straight up able to reason his way out of it.

The thing to note here is that spells of this nature require a very meticulous approach; you can’t half-ass your reprogramming or the victim will just think their way past it. If you alter someone’s mind, the wording of the spell must be ironclad, lest you risk it wearing down over time and even break.

Luckily we have nothing to fear in that regard, because the spell that created Peacemaker was written by a Rainwing with a total of four days of literacy training. No one better mention the name Clearsight to the new baby Nightwing, or next month is going to be rather interesting.

But that’s just speculation on my part. Let’s assume that, somehow, this spell isn’t as unstable as all the others. Somehow Kinkajou threaded all the needles, and masterfully dodged every conceivable pitfall to pen the perfect incantation, despite having been illiterate just a few weeks prior. This one is built to last and Darkstalker is sealed away really thoroughly, for good.

That is still absolutely terrible and morally dubious, because now you have Peacemaker, who for all intents and purposes is a COMPLETELY innocent little kid, saddled with this huge burden of being the certifiable reincarnation of a genocidal ancient wizard. He’s gonna grow up thinking things like “Mommy gets real quiet whenever the topic of the Icewing tragedy is brought up,” and “Why does Auntie Moon look at me like that? One time she accidentally called me a weird name, who is Darkstalker?” “What is this ‘Clearsight’ name my mind-reading friends from the village found in Mommy’s mind?”

In a village that will be full of mind-readers soon, eventually the secret will come out, and Peacemaker is going to learn what was done to him. A huge, messy load of undeserved baggage was forced onto this completely separate, innocent entity. He will be devastated. Whether he then chooses to forgive them for this remains to be seen. To be honest, he would be well within his right not to, and turn resentful.

Poor kid.

Qibli’s callousness

I love Qibli, he is one of my favorite characters. This happens to be his book, and the fact that I fundamentally dislike half of it makes me rather sad. If anything, I hope this tells you that I’m not just hating on it for my personal amusement. I really wanted to like this. I tried to, and I couldn’t.

Qibli is really weird in this one, to be honest. He is suddenly made to be co-dependent on Moonwatcher, fawning over her every third paragraph, saying how much he loves her, how he is an incomplete and dysfunctional wreck without her, how it physically pains him to be apart from her, oh if only the stars would grant his wish and split the mountains apart so that he may fly to his princess, his muse, his goddess of ebony wit. It gets so old.

And it’s not Qibli. He never acted this clingy towards Moonwatcher. It’s more intense than even Winter gets about Moon, and Winter was actually depicted with a crush on her in book 6. Qibli was always just a supportive element, eager to befriend Moon but never desperate, like he is going to keel over if he is separated from his true love five minutes longer. These very frequent love declarations feel so forced coming out of him. It strikes me like it was just written in service of the love triangle. Maybe if we make him confess his love every four seconds readers will overlook the fact that they had no proper romantic build-up.

You might rightly accuse me of bias. I have previously admitted I am fond of Qibli/Winter as a romantic pairing, on the surface this seems like I am just not happy with my pet ship being blocked by Moonwatcher. But I assure you, I am actually pretty flexible and accommodating even towards pairings that contradict my preferences. I have no issues with Winter/Moonwatcher, for example, because the possibility was properly established and they have good romantic chemistry in Winter Turning. In theory, I would have no problem with Qibli/Moonwatcher either if it was ever set up as an interesting romantic dynamic. But to me, it seems like Qibli is written as a good, supportive friend to Moon for four books, only to pivot hard into “Moon moon moon moon moon moon swoon” at the last second, and it just reads to me as obnoxious.

I got distracted. This section is called “Qibli’s callousness”, and I haven’t even talked about the main part.

Qibli and Winter have excellent chemstry together, whether you read it as romantic or platonic—both of these interpretations have merit and are set up. They’re always the highlight of any scene they’re in. Throughout the story arc you get the impression that these two really get on each other’s nerves, but they bond and grow into really strong friends who bicker a lot but have each other’s backs when it counts.

Then there is a scene where Qibli casually tells Winter that he wouldn’t object if someone wanted to mind-control away some of Winter’s more objectionable traits.

This is genuinely a terrible thing to say to your friend. Like, it crosses a line and ceases to be harmless banter; you’re just telling them that there is something you hate about them so much that you wish they were someone else. Winter actually WAS mind-controlled earlier and felt (and proably still feels) guilty about having attacked Qibli in that state. And now Qibli says “Hey, I wouldn’t mind if someone did that to you again! Hue hue!”

It is awful, BUT I don’t necessarily object to Qibli saying this here. Qibli is in the middle of his character arc at this moment, so he is expected to be flawed. He is making a mistake by thoughtlessly telling Winter this horrid thing, and it seems like a believable continuation of his current character track. This is a reasonable development as long as the plot acknowledges that it’s a mistake.

Spoilers: The plot doesn’t acknowledge that it’s a mistake. Qibli never has a scene after where he reflects upon what he said and apologizes to Winter. When Darkstalker has Qibli trapped in his mountain jail and mind-wipes Qibli’s grandfather into a toddler (hey, wait a minute), Qibli gets visibly disturbed. Like, this is so off-putting to him that he gets queasy and Darkstalker hastily changes the spell. That could have been a great way to bring this back. Like in the epilogue, have Qibli track down Winter and tell him about disturbing baby grandpa theater and how he realized that wiping people’s minds is actually messed up and should have never said that to him.

But he doesn’t. He just lets Winter go, allowing him to believe he is broken and needs magical intervention to be tolerable. It leaves me to think that maybe he’s still okay with it, and fantasizing about rewriting his friend’s mind. Great.

Moonwatcher’s character death

You will find as this goes on that, I get the impression that the second half of this book takes all of the wonderful, endearing characters I have learned to love throughout the story and replaces them with really mean, or stupid, or otherwise inaccurate caricatures.

Moonwatcher’s relationship with Darkstalker gets plenty of setup and development in Moon Rising. You get the sense that these two could be great friends if their circumstances were a little different. It does a great job at making you think maybe Darkstalker is just misunderstood; maybe Moon should free him from his predicament.

Then at the end of Escaping Peril comes the emotional gut punch. Darkstalker actually IS a villain. He callously admits to Moonwatcher that he used his magic to make his own father gruesomely disembowel himself. Moonwatcher is horrified and disgusted that he would do that. There is no circumstance in which something like that would ever be okay. She ends the scene awash in tears because the person she thought was her friend is a murderer and a sadist. This is good, that is a natural reaction to what she was just told.

A few hours from there, in Talons of Power, Turtle finds Moon again and she is completely cool with Darkstalker walking free, despite crying her eyes out after feeling so betrayed earlier. That may seem strange, but this is still good because later, Darkstalker’s mind control plot is discovered. This scene was obviously written to set that up, Moon is mind-controlled into forgetting that Darkstalker could do something that morally reprehensible, and thus forgives him. This is also completely in line with his characterization in Legends: Darkstalker. It’s a kind of stunt he would pull to get Clearsight to shut up about him slipping into villainy.

In my earlier post I alluded to a moment where Moon is set to narrative auto-pilot and says something so rampantly off-kilter that it does irreversible, permanent damage to her character. It happens here, in the second half of book 10. Qibli gives Moon the Darkstalker protection earring, and Moon, somehow, says “I’m not being mind-controlled, Darkstalker really is my friend.”

I get what the plot tries to do here. It’s taking this concept of mind-control and adding a nuance, in an attempt to flesh out Darkstalker and give his character depth. He is ready to control everyone in the world, but for Moon, who is his best friend in this era, he wants her to remain herself. Perhaps this is his attempt at attonement for playing with Clearsight’s mind and driving her away from him. It is very touching in a way, viewed in isolation.

Unfortunately, it does not work with the full context of all the books. Because Moon is in auto-pilot mode right now, her main character trait is “Darkstalker=Friend,” so naturally she would speak in support of him. But this revelation has devastating retroactive consequences. The earlier scene that was written with Moon under mind-control is now altered into her having been in her right mind! She is completely okay with Darkstalker’s admittance to cold-blooded torture and evisceration, within hours of being so shocked by it that it made her cry and ready to denounce him. That is such a quick turnaround it’s giving me whiplash. And what’s more it turns Moon from a principled, upstanding girl into a sociopath who casually accepts gruesome torture and murder if it is committed by someone she likes.

Did Sutherland forget about the scene two books ago, where Darkstalker’s actions were so inconceivably horrid for Moon to learn of that she started crying? It baffles me that this made it into the final version. Her saying she was never mind-controlled makes Moon come off as so awful. This torture-excusing lunatic is not the same kind-hearted and insightful character I followed in all the other books.

Kinkajou’s character derailment

The world is a sad place when I have to question the way Kinjajou is written. Fortunately she is mostly fine, despite her having the biggest excuse to act out-of-character since she’s the victim of a mind-altering spell. Her only real moment of “what!?” comes at the end.

I already talked about her role in casting the spell that regresses Darkstalker into an infant. But I didn’t mention how her being the source of it is questionable in itself.

The clue is in the first paragraph of this section: She herself has experienced the effects of invasive mind-alteration. She was cursed by Anemone in the previous book to be in love with Turtle, and kind of half-struggles kind of not with it, it’s really strange. Turtle is appropriately horrified and acts like really awful things are happening, but then it’s mostly played lightly for some reason. My assumption is that Sutherland introduced this plot point, but then realized how uncomfortable this premise really is and tried to downplay it until the story got to a point where it could get done away with.

But I think the takeaway is still supposed to be that this was a horrid thing to do (which it absolutely is), and that Kinkajou will have to spend a lot of time trying to untangle her real emotions from the fake ones the spell created.

The point is: Kinkajou knows first-hand how awful it is to do something like that to another person. Ideally she should never even conceive of the idea to cast a spell like that, but if we’re really set on this Darkstalker baby thing and it has to happen, she should at least be a bit hesitant about it. And afterwards she should struggle with the guilt of having resorted to it. Not celebrate it and be proud, like it’s funny.

The assassination of Winter’s future

Now we come to the part I’ve alluded to previously; the part where all of these threads converge to utterly destroy one character and drive him to the brink of ruin. Let’s talk about Winter.

Prince Winter is the son of Tundra and Prince Narwhal, hatching in the same clutch as his sister Icicle. He spent his formative years being unfavorably compared to said sister—who easily took to traits that Icewing royalty considers desirable—whereas Winter struggled greatly to embody those same ideals. He was just a little too kind, too merciful, too gentle. As a result he often had to endure abuse from his parents, who made him feel like he was defective.

Because he was young and didn’t have any other frame of reference, he embraced this abusive narrative and began to drive himself with a vigor unreasonable for someone of his age. He scraped and cloyed for every bit of credit he could get, obsessing over advancing up the circle rankings in an attempt to “purge” the wrongness out of himself. To make his parents as proud of him as they were of Icicle.

This never worked. He was always seen as the runt, poised to embarrass the family name. Whatever he did, no matter how hard he strived, there was always something he could have done better.

The only real source of love and affirmation in his life was his older brother, Hailstorm. Where everyone else only saw what Winter wasn’t, Hailstorm embraced his brother despite of his “failings” and was openly affectionate with him. When Winter was with him, it was okay to not think about rankings all the time, and just be himself for a bit. I assume Hailstorm fulfilled a similar role for Icicle as well, which is why both of them love him dearly, and Icicle destroys her own life to bring him back.

Winter also has a fascination with scavengers, possibly because they are small and perceived as useless, like he himself is. He likely feels a kinship with them and observes them being craftier and more adept than everyone else sees them. This is therapeutic for him, to see that a thing can have merit even if no one wants to see it.

One day, he and Hailstorm sneak into Skywing territory so Winter can catch a scavenger as a pet. This excursion turns hostile when they are discovered by a roaming Skywing troop and faced with the prospect of capture, possibly execution. In a gambit to save Winter from this fate, Hailstorm mirrors the words of his parents, calling Winter pathetic and useless, so the Skywings will not think of him as a threat and show mercy. His act succeeds in convincing the Skywings, but it also convinces Winter, who does not understand Hailstorm only said these things to save his life. He returns home—believing his brother hated him all along—to face the wrath of his furious family for losing them “the desirable son”.

For all of his life, these themes have repeated themselves and haunted him. “I was born wrong and defective,” “I am unlovable,” “No one wants me.”

A few months after the war ends, Winter is one of the five Icewings enrolled in the newly founded Jade Mountain Academy. Shortly after departing, he unexpectedly returns home, having successfully rescued his older brother and bringing him back. He is made to believe that this erases his mistakes, his mother even pays him a backhanded compliment, an uncharacteristically “nice” gesture. He is promoted to the top of the rankings, finally his parents are proud of him.

But of course it is all a trick. The “adoration” afforded to him was all a ploy. Secretly, his parents abused power and tradition to arrange for Winter’s death. They force him into a lethal trial they intentionally rigged against him, all to finally erase that stain on their family’s honor.

Winter finally realizes the true nature of his parents’ opinion of him. Even when he succeeds, and does everything right, he is still defective, unlovable, and unwanted. He will never be anything else to his family. And so he leaves his homeland, pretending he is dead, resigned to live in hiding forever.

During this time, while at the brink of despair, Winter is able to draw strength from one source: His new friends from the academy. He vocalizes that, for all the abuse he suffered at the hands of his birth family, he fervently believes that THEY would never do anything like that to him. They chose to stuck with him, even when he was awful, and told him he was not hopeless. He was not a mistake; he could be deserving of love.

So naturally, he returns to them; they accept him readily, are willing to be his new surrogate family. When he almost burns to death at a later point, they fear and weep for him. When Qibli sets out to confront his own abusive family, Winter, despite being mind-controlled into a placid potato at the time, feels concerned enough for his friend’s safety to insist to come along (returning the favor of them accompanying him in his time of need in book 7). When Darkstalker’s mind control forces Winter to attack Qibli, he is shown ashamed and guilty of it once the control wears off again.

They bicker and struggle, and make mistakes, they break up but always come back together again. Time and time again the one thing that is always reinforced: When the cards are down, Winter loves his friends, and they love him. They would never intentionally hurt each other, or give up on each other.

I want you to keep in mind how wholesome, and loving, and mutually supportive this ramshackle band of misfits has been portrayed to this point... Because we’re moving on to the arc 2 finale, and it will do everything it can to corrupt all of it and consign Winter to a life of misery.

We arrive at aforementioned scene, where Moonwatcher receives her earring. Just a little bit prior, Winter had learned that Darkstalker unleashed a magical plague onto his people in an attempt to wipe them out. Now here is Moonwatcher, revealing that she is not under any spell, and has aligned herself with this guy willingly, speaking fondly of him as if he was a dear friend who never did any wrong. Winter takes this badly and accidentally breaks a vase; the narrative lingers on this moment and really tries to sell us on how unreasonable Winter’s reaction is, how he is overreacting, but let’s examine that interpretation for a moment.

Moonwatcher doesn’t yet know about the attempted Icewing genocide, but she DOES know about Darkstalker being okay with casting spells to inflict immeasurable torture upon those he hates. WE know that she knows this, so her stance here is already suspect. Yet she goes on to praise Darkstalker and refer to him as a friend. Look at this from Winter’s perspective. This “friend” of Moonwatcher just tried to kill his entire tribe, and he actually succeeded in killing his aunt, Queen Glacier, a person Winter greatly respects. Winter is currently unable to return to his homeland for fear of being branded a traitor. Even if he could return, he knows his obstinate and spiteful family would prevent him from attending the funeral, meaning he is not even afforded the basic dignity of saying farewell to his aunt. The aunt whom Darkstalker murdered by making her vomit her own blood until she withered away in her bed. And here is Moon, absolving the person who did this to Glacier from his appalling actions, despite knowing full well what Darkstalker is capable of and choosing to look away.

I don’t know about you, but I think I can forgive the grieving, emotionally overwhelmed boy for shattering a little pottery after hearing his trusted friend—who held his hand when he was dying—say that the guy who makes people disembowel themselves and wipes out entire countries may be misunderstood and not so bad. I think I would have a similar reaction. In fact, I would never want to talk to her ever again.

There is no way I can read this scene in which Moon doesn’t come off as either an absolute lunatic, or critically stupid and callous. In fact, based on her earlier behavior I half-expect her to get over the news of the attempted Icewing massacre in a couple hours, saying “Eh, it’s kinda bad, but you just have to do these kinds of things sometimes, you know? I’m sure he had his reasons.”

Then there is the part where Qibli makes his off-color comment about how Winter’s brain could really use a good wash. I already went into how it could have worked but didn’t. But with the timing here, we’ve already had Moon spit on their friendship, so as Winter’s other closest friend, it naturally follows that Qibli also craps on his feelings.

Consider the context: Winter comes from an abusive household where his parents forcibly tried to change him away from who he was to purge the “wrongness” from him. When they betray him and he narrowly escapes their attempt on his life, he re-affirms his belief in his friends, and the knowledge that they wouldn’t treat him like that gives him the strength he needs to keep going. But now, Qibli asserts that Winter DOES need to be altered, thereby AGREEING with Winter’s abusive parents, rendering Winter’s affirmation from book 7 erroneous. Qibli WOULD treat him like that if it made Winter less “intolerable”.

Neither Moonwatcher nor Qibli ever make an attempt to repair this rift. Winter is left betrayed and alone.

Stuff happens, and the forces of the Nightwings and Icewings come to blows over Jade Mountain. With his two closest friends having written him off and his support network eroded, Winter relapses into thinking he is worthless, seeks validation in unquestioning patriotism, and realigns himself with his abusive family by throwing himself into the battle. Nobody wants him to, in fact his parents still hate him for it, but whatever. His father dies and his mother blames him for it.

Meanwhile Turtle, Anemone, and Qibli are cooking up a solution to the battle problem. They have the idea to make everyone’s minds connect in a huge empathy wave for a few moments, which I think is a pretty interesting idea for what it’s worth. But then they teleport both armies back to their homes, and the spell sweeps Winter up with them, taking him out of the rest of the finale and bringing him to the Ice Kingdom. The characters say “whoops” but aren’t further concerned with the situation. It’s all a big laugh.

Let me remind you that Winter is currently considered not welcome on Icewing territory. His family, whom he was sent back with, is extremely abusive and vindictive. His friends know this. Said parents have previously arranged for him to be killed, and are still on record as wanting him dead. His friends KNOW this. And now he is alone with them and a gaggle of other royal Icewings who all are extremely pissed off at him for ruining their sacred trial site.

It is very possible that he is being torn apart and mauled by an enraged mob right now. He could be forced into captivity and flayed. Maybe the interim regent is sentencing him to death and getting the rope ready. There is a million different horrible things that could be happening to Winter right now, while he is trapped alone with people who hate him, things his friends would be reasonably able to anticipate. And nobody is doing anything to get him out of there, to suggest bringing him back, even though it would only take a single spoken sentence to do so! They aren’t even concerned!

Then the climax happens, strawberry thing and all, and we get the coup de grâce. After all is said and done, the group decides that Winter is untrustworthy, and that they must protect the secret of Darkstalker’s fate from him, because they fear if he knew he would kill Peacemaker.

Moon, who read Winter’s mind in book 6 and reached out to him about how the “ruthless Icewing warrior” persona in his head is a facade and how she sees he has a gentle and good heart... Moon, who in book 7 finds out about Winter’s secret deal to kill Glory and STILL trusts him, who calls out his bullshit to his face because she KNOWS how kind-hearted Winter is and that he would never resort to murder... Moon who, again, held his hand while he was dying... thinks that the dragon she has reminded of his compassionate nature time and time again would kill an innocent child.

This is disgusting. Moon believing that is so far off the mark with regards to anything this group has embodied or done for any of the last 4 books, that my only conclusion can be that these are different characters. Maybe the Nightwing library collapsed on top of original Moon, and when Darkstalker magiced her back to health she came back wrong or something. I don’t know.

So after all of this, Winter is left alone. He somehow escaped from the Ice Kingdom; luckily there is a timeskip so we can just gloss over the horrible situation he was put in by his friends. He thinks about Jade Mountain. He reflects on everything that happened, how his parents never really loved him... How they hated him so much they tried to kill him... How he despaired, but found solace in his friends who loved him for who he was.... How those friends then betrayed him too and magiced him away... How they didn’t care about what happened to him... And he decides he is done. He won’t bother going back. A few people, probably Sunny, reach out to tell him he is welcome back, but he says “it wouldn’t be fair to other Icewings if an exile took up a bed”. The decision isn’t hard to make, after all there is nothing left for him there. Everyone has written him off, moved on and left him behind.

Kinkajou visits sometimes, tries to stay in touch, but that’s just how she is. Maybe the others sent her to check on whether he’s going to become troublesome. They don’t trust him. Better to keep an eye on him, he might kill the baby.

With nowhere else to go, Winter moves to Sanctuary, a place for rejects like him. I picture him standing there, at the edge of a cliff staring blankly into the distance. He is completely alone; no one wants to go near him or talk to him beyond the bare necessities. He could probably make new friends with the Talons of Peace if he tried, but there is no point. Why should someone like him have friends? It wouldn’t work. They’d just decide he is too inconvenient to be around. Sooner or later they would just tell him to leave anyway. It's better not to try, so he doesn't get hurt again.

And slowly it dawns on him. His parents had been right all along. It was never them, or the others, it was him. He is the problem. The Icewings said it, Qibli said it, Moonwatcher said it. There is just something fundamentally wrong with him.

He is defective. He is unlovable. Nobody wants him. He will never be anything, or have anyone. And so he stands at the cliff, looking over the broken vase fragments of his life... This is who he is. Prince Winter. A mistake.

And quietly, where no one knows or cares, he does the only thing he has left to do... he begins to weep.

As it is written, the tale of Winter is the story of a boy who is told he is wrong for being alive. He closes his ears and tries to keep walking forward, desperate to prove that he is not an error, that he has merit. But this book comes out and it unmistakably says that he doesn’t. He is nothing, and he deserves to have nothing.

And I just cannot accept that.

Why did this have to happen?

I think that the author was really struggling with the ending of this book. I’ve said before how much of a corner she wrote herself into with such an invincible villain. I think she came up with the strawberry idea as a solution to this problem. But as she was writing it, the characters kept fighting her. It was not a natural solution, not a decision the characters—as they were established—would ever make.

So concessions had to be made to force the issue. Established traits had to be bent slightly to make this plot work. The farther she went, the worse it got. The concessions piled up and turned into contrivances. Eventually the characters were no longer acting like themselves. Their bonds got stretched too far and some snapped. It’s a very tragic pitfall that occurs with long-running series.

I think Sutherland must have also been tired. Writing an entire book is a monumental task, and writing 6 connected ones even moreso. She also comes out with these things really quickly. Maybe she was burnt out? Maybe she wanted to be done and her attention lapsed. Maybe that’s why she forgot that Moon knew about the disemboweling. It seems reasonable to believe when you consider that the next story arc would make a relatively clean break from the problems of this arc, especially with regards to the magic system.

But I don’t know what ultimately happened, so I can only speculate. I reiterate, I bear no ill will against Sutherland for writing this. Even if I kind of hate everything about this finale, and very vocally wish it would be different, I don’t want this examination to generate (or reawaken) any hatred towards her, or to attack her personally. I understand the pain of an artist who gets trapped with something for too long and has to find the means, any means, to see it through to the end. I criticize the story, but I could never hate anyone for that.

But for me, I do not consider this half of the book as part of the story. The characters act too unnaturally for it to have happened. So to me, it didn’t. We don’t know what happened, maybe Darkstalker is still out there. Maybe they dealt with him. Maybe what actually happened is my crappy and self-indulgent rewrite of the ending which I will never show to anyone because it would be really embarrassing.

But whatever actually ended up happening, I am sure Winter never ended up at that cliff, pondering how worthless and meaningless his life was. He is currently at Jade Mountain, surrounded by friends who love him, and bickering with Qibli about the correct solution to their advanced calculus assignment that is due tomorrow.

Is there anything left to say?

Probably.

I didn’t talk about Anemone yet. You know, in the epilogue she enchants herself a bracelet that makes her “not be so mean all the time”. I find that creepy. To me it reads as Anemone voluntarily brainwashing herself with magic to erase her negative traits instead of growing past them naturally because she finds them undesirable and wants to work to change for the better. I would ordinarily assume that this is an overreaction on my part, and I’m just reading the scene wrong. But no, we just got through a part where the heroes brainwashing someone is treated as an unequivocal good and worthy of celebration, so I think my reading may actually be spot on. Why are we letting the little kid alter her own brain without supervision? Hello? Tsunami? Someone intervene maybe? This cannot be healthy.

Turtle stands out to me as the one bright spot in all of this. He (and Peril, but she’s mostly out of focus) remain as the only main characters of this arc who don’t have any mind-boggling out-of-character moments or sudden streaks of uncharacteristic callousness. I really like the part where Qibli goes to free Turtle from his captivity and plans to give him an earful about the comically unhelpful messages he’s been sending him. But when Turtle asks if what he did was helpful, Qibli sees how beaten down and exhausted Turtle is, and wordlessly drops his frustration to tell him “Yeah, they were helpful.” That is the true Qibli shining through for a moment, showing that he cares about the well-being of his friends.

Do I hate the pairing of Qibli/Moonwatcher? No. Well, I DO hate how it happened in the book, and how the story tried to assassinate Winter’s character to resolve the love triangle and make it happen. I don’t hate it on principle though. If you are a fan of Qibli/Moonwatcher and want to write fanfics about it, please do! I absolutely encourage you to do that! Maybe you can fix this mess and turn it into something that’s actually properly handled!

Mightyclaws keeps the power that Darkstalker granted him past the finale. That means all the spells that Darkstalker cast are technically still active. Does that mean the Icewings have to wear earrings for the rest of their lives? Do they get sick again if they take them off? Is Peril forever cursed to think of Darkstalker as a cool old uncle and has to somehow reconcile how everyone else thinks of him? How did the Nightwings relinquishing their powers work, do they have to wear the earrings forever too now?

And there is one more thing to mention.

My confession

You may have already intuited this, if you’ve been following the content of my blog. It is very heavily skewed towards the first and second arcs of the series. I would now like to confess something.

When I read the second half of book 10, I found it so disillusioning, Winter’s fate so upsetting... that I put down the series then and there. And I haven’t picked it back up since.

That’s right, I have not read arc 3. I don’t know if that makes me a fake fan. I know pretty much everything that happens in it, the controversial twist at the end, Pyrrhia coming back into the story later, Snowfall getting brainwashed by a piece of jewelry until she cares about a plot that had nothing to do with her or the fate of the Icewings, etc..

It’s not out of malice, or because it’s a new continent. The opposite in fact; I would have greatly prefered a clean break with a new setting—Bug-themed dragons in a slightly more contemporary, developed environment sounds fascinating and full of potential. I don’t hate Pantala or the new characters.

I just... I can’t really do this again. I can’t handle the thought of Pyrrhia coming back post-Darkstalker, with Winter showing up and talking to these guys again like nothing happened, seeming like a different person, joking around with them like his entire character wasn’t dragged through a mountain of manure to make the plot bend a certain way. I think as long as this is the ending that the story is continuing from, seeing that would just make me miserable.

Maybe I will just stay in the parts of the story that I fell in love with. And imagine a version of reality in which Pantala is allowed to exist on its own, where Swordtail was the fourth POV character of arc 3, where Queen Wasp stayed the villain throughout, and Snowfall got her own legends book about how she reformed Icewing society and fixed all the shit that poisoned Winter’s life, so future generations don’t have to suffer through the same stuff he did.

~~~~~

If you’re still with me, thank you for reading this far. I think this is everything I ever thought about the finale of the second story arc, so now I never have to talk about it again. Writing this was difficult. I found it crushing at times. This will probably stand as the only overtly negative post I have ever made on this blog. I love Wings of Fire, and I want to celebrate it. To add to it, not tear it down.

I hope this wasn’t too boring, or painful, or frustrating, or soul-crushing to read through. I’ll see you later, hopefully with a more constructive post.

[signanothername]

How do you feel about the fandom?

I’m assuming you mean Ut/utmv?

How can I say this in the most gentle way possible hmm..

I genuinely do love the creativity within the fandom, the beautiful art and stories and ideas people come up with, the different interpretations of these characters even when i don’t agree with them or have my own thoughts/opinions, cause that’s what fandoms are supposed to, it’s all of us showing our love for these lil blorbos of ours in each of our own unique different ways

Of course, each fandom has its good and bad side, but to say the ut/utmv fandom is so damn negative to the point it’s suffocating is an understatement

I’m especially weirded out by the pro harassment behavior within this fandom, like, a mf would say “i’m anti harassment!!!!” Then turn around and post/reblog a post with +20 people name dropped to “raise awareness” for whatever little that is worth, you can “raise awareness” by messaging people privately, not make a list where an asshole can easily use it to harass people, and no, saying shit like “don’t harass these people!!!” Does not alleviate any responsibility from you if they do get harassed because of your post

That’s why messages are a thing, and only messaging those who explicitly state they want to be messaged, not jump in into people’s inboxes or messages and telling them shit out of the blue

So many people within this fandom need to learn fandom etiquette, how to mind their own business, and to use the damn block button, you’re uncomfortable with a certain subject? Tumblr has the most handy filtering system, don’t like a person/find them uncomfortable? Block them, blocking them isn’t enough and want to complain? That is what you can use your blog for, feel free to complain on your own blog to your heart’s content (not on other people’s blogs or under their posts if it’s not the subject for it) that’s what friends are for too, go to their DMs and complain till the end of time

Being just a bit bigger of an artist follower wise in comparison to other artists means that I deal with very special cases sometimes, because I’m also puzzled by the way people can get super comfortable with commanding strangers to do things they want or to break basic respectful boundaries like not getting people involved in drama even when they specifically state not to include them (me, I’m starngers, every time I reblog my boundaries post, it’s me implying that I got something that broke my very basic bitch boundaries that day, which says a lot about the fandom, cause i literally only got 4 boundaries stated damn)

That’s why I opt to not get too close to people within the fandom, and am generally careful as to who I let close to me, I’m very certain people might think I somehow have my own social circle within the fandom or have some wide connections they can never get, when in reality I’m isolated af

That being said, idk if it’s young people not knowing any better, or adults who act like children, but the fact harassment is very prominent and also very normalized within the fandom is something that definitely made me seriously think of just getting back to the Transformers fandom (one of the most chill fandoms i’ve ever been part of)

Fandom is fandom, keep it for rambling about blorbos, and learn to mind your own business <3

[bruisedfig]

i fear if you don’t support bot use just don’t use them… doesn’t take away from a person’s writing ability or blog and blocking is so excessive! that person seems very immature and like they have a case of main character syndrome because even if you vehemently hate ai is it not better to be like ‘hi i don’t support this because it’s bad for the environment and very morally grey and not good for your brain’ instead of being like ‘no you’re evil for making and using bots and i will block you. that’ll show em 😼’ likkkke 😭 i don’t use ai chat bots because i’ve done my own research and drawn my own conclusions but you can’t force everyone to see it like that…

oh i wish i could reply to this with an audio message bc me typing my thoughts out is always a struggle !! 😭

but !!! it’s 6am as i’m typing this so bear with me — i kinda sat and thought about it overnight and idk… i’ve always been sort of undecided about the ethics and impacts of ai. i’ve never used chatgpt or anything beyond c.ai, but icl i’ve always felt iffy about it and i do at times feel like it negatively impacts my writing ://

i won’t say anything about the affect it has on the environment bc i’m not learnt up on it enough (i plan to spend some time looking into it bc that feels like the right thing to do), but in terms of it being damaging to people and their brains, i definitely see the problem there.

i think beyond my next bot drop, i probably won’t release anymore bots. bc i’ve really thought about it, and i don’t wanna put out things that are going to negatively impact people in the long run. i’ve had a lot of fun with my own bots and making them was fun for a bit too, but idk i just don’t think it’s for me. i’d rather just write fics.

i do feel silly coming to this conclusion after spending like two weeks making bots for my 2k thing but that’s life ig 😭

but in response to the person being a bit of a dick to people? eh! if that’s the way they wanna be perceived on this app that’s their choice. i’m happy minding my business!

[twopoppies]

https://www.tumblr.com/twopoppies/771782232516050944/gina-i-want-to-tell-you-i-have-been-reading-your?source=share

To this person and anyone feeling the same way, I’d strongly recommend taking a step back from the fandom altogether (especially Twitter and TikTok). If stepping back completely feels too hard, maybe stick to Tumblr for a few weeks and try to avoid blogs that focus on drama. There are plenty of blogs that simply reblog photos and fics without engaging in negativity (shoutout to those people, you’re the best!).

Take some time to reflect. Grab a pen and paper, and imagine the worst-case scenario: Louis not having a career, not selling enough tickets, bg blowing up in his face, the fandom completely divided, etc. Write down how these scenarios would personally affect you: emotionally, mentally and physically. Would it actually change your day-to-day life? How would your life be different a few weeks, months, or years from now? What would you feel immediately after that and then six months after? This is actually what I did in therapy about real life things that were worrying me.

We’ve just lost Liam, and it’s one of the worst things that could happen. Yet, here we are, still moving forward with our lives, carrying a bit of sadness with us.

The fandom, what happens in it, and the content you consume are things you can curate to prioritize your mental health. I know people who block unpleasant tags (like stunts or bg) and live happily in their own bubble. Every day they make the choice to put themselves first over the fandom drama.

Even Harry has made the decision to prioritize his mental health by stepping back from social media and I respect him so much for that.

Personally, I learn about the drama from your blog, Gina. If you suddenly stopped posting about it tomorrow, I’d probably think nothing was happening lol

Please, take care of yourselves, everyone. You come first ❤️

🤣🤣🤣🤣 I’ve never thought of myself as drama blog, but I guess I talk about whatever’s going on.

Anyway. It’s all very good advice. Thank you, love.

[maximumsaladtrash]

i’m sorry but the whole “more accusations than proof” thing from the anon is ridiculous ???

i sent you an ask last week about how she treated me, and that was very hard to talk about. she’s been blocked since september and i made a new account on discord because i can’t even stand the idea of our old dms being accessible. she’s posted /neg about me multiple times since december, but she’s deleted her blog

i think a lot of us have had bad experiences irl. some people, like myself, experienced things like grooming. this is just an example of course. that was in 2021. i would never keep proof of that, i can’t access proof of that, and a big chunk of it was in person. but i tell people i trust about it, and because they’re decent people they support me and understand that it would be absolutely heinous to lie about such a thing. lying about something so serious is incredibly rare and why in the world would someone do that just for fun?

now, i’m not referring to feral as someone who groomed me. i mean, i know there’s some of that going around, but that involves another person. i haven’t met / interacted with that person who experienced that with her, so i’ll just stick to my own experiences when i label her as certain things (but of course i hope that person knows i’m here for them and i understand this is a sensitive subject, so they might never want to talk on this account and i completely understand). from my perspective, she’s incredibly emotionally abusive and when i confronted her about that, she threatened to kill herself to make me feel bad. she encourages self harm and had me believing it could be a positive thing. she’s called me controlling and manipulative (for simply supporting my boyfriend when he wanted to cut her off as a friend) and she’s told my friends and my boyfriend that i am those things. she’s posted about having violent thoughts towards ex friends. she likes irl gore, i.e., seeing real people get injured.

my boyfriend is a witness of how she treated me, and i’ve witnessed how she treated him. a good friend of mine could also back me up on the fact that feral dmed her and told her some terrible things about me. a lot of us are saying that she hurt us in a lot of serious ways.

if the first thing you say is “give me proof” instead of feeling sympathy and believing the victim(s), you should really do some self reflection

^^^

ive got nothing to say other than i totally agree

especially with the last part

[monstersinthecosmos]

I know you probably don’t want to dwell on the show and the negative but I absolutely hate what has happened on here and how hateful people are in the VC fandom it’s just very demoralizing and makes me want to retreat from anything besides the books completely. The discourse was spicy before the show but everything is just even more divisive now and it has sucked the fun out of it. Not really an ask more of a vent sorry

Hi there!

You’re correct that I don’t particularly find it fun to dwell on the negative stuff – as you said yourself, SOMETIMES THE DISCOURSE SUCKS THE FUN OUT OF IT. But I do understand how you feel and I want to say a couple things and I hope this helps you find a groove.

First of all, I did my best not to acknowledge it too much because I didn’t want to validate the folks who were being cunts to me lol, but please know that this fandom (at least on Tumblr) has ALWAYS been kinda fucking violent towards me LOL. I started VC tumbling back in 2016 and it’s ALWAYS been a fucking trash fire. It is hard out there for Marius stans lmfao.

Like, when I was first posting on Tumblr and acclimating to the Tumblr culture it was so much of like, me feeling brave enough to share meta only for someone to be RB’ing me to tell me I’m wrong, or me talking about how much I liked something about Marius only for someone to vague me, or it was me hosting the huge fandom Discord back in 2017 only for people to then come on tumblr and complain about how the Discord was way too Marius Friendly as if like, a drama-free space where we can discuss the books makes it a harbor for predators.

Of course I also had the gaggle of fucking morons who were constantly stalking me, catfishing their way into my servers to try to take screenshots and write call outs and cancel me, who would not stop preaching about how “all these big blogs” are “actually such terrible people” because “look at the things they ship” even when I’d never been unkind to them, even occasionally donated to their GFMs. These are folks who think they’re morally in the right for protecting the virtue of Armand’s poor teenage asshole and executed this justice by stalking and harassing an ACTUAL PERSON LOL. Like, listen. I’m sorry to burst ur bubble, but Armand doesn’t exist. He’s letters on a paper. I’m actually a real person and you’re up my fucking ass because I don’t’ even fucking know why, you’re jealous of my fucking Tumblr engagement or something? Which one of us is actually the creep here lol?? Is this a race to the bottom to be the valedictorian of clown school on the website for homeschooled clowns?

I’ve also had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of acephobic discourse, being told I don’t do enough to protect every individual in fandom from their own bullies as if it's my job to do that, being called ableist for how I wrote Daniel in my fics even though I was projecting and discussing my own personal experiences – I’ve also had a project collaborator have a tantrum and try to steal my work until I had to threaten with legal action, I’ve been put on block lists, I’ve had many people consume my fics in secret without actually leaving comments because I’m too toxic for them to communicate with in public.

BLAH BLAH BLAH.

This was all before AMC showed up LMFAO. It was not easy for me! It’s still not always easy!

And so yeah like, by nature of the fandom EXPLODING we are going to see more drama. More people is more drama. The nature of the discourse often hedges into real life issues that people are very opinionated and passionate about and there are conflicting needs inside the same space about how to hold conversations. Even just the other day I RB’d a joke about Anne Rice and OP got upset with me because they didn’t want actual fans interacting with it. Whoops! I didn’t know! I just thought it was funny. ;.;  

Even in good faith and with the best of intentions we’re going to step on each other’s toes, and we’re gonna find people we don’t vibe with. And that’s normal and it’s fine.

What ISN’T normal is this inability to disengage that I think we see often in online space, and I don’t want to get into a whole side essay about all the reasons why I think that happens. But sometimes you gotta be the bigger person and take it on the chin.

Like, yeah, it sucks. It sucks the fun out of the room when you share a space with such bitter people who can’t be kind to each other. But like. THAT’S A THEM PROBLEM, YOU KNOW? And I think we gotta remember that sometimes people like that do it for the attention or the spike of dopamine when they can pick a fight and honestly like, you don’t need to waste YOUR OWN time on it, but you’re also doing that person a kindness if you don’t enable the bad behavior.

And it sucks that Tumblr’s mute tools are awful!!!!! It would make navigating so much easier to be able to curate the dash a little better and keep the bad actors out of your space. I sometimes just fuck off and don’t even come online for days if I know I’m not in a good headspace and won’t have the strength to just fucking ignore it, because sometimes drama catches my eye and I get nosy and go down the rabbit hole, too – having ADHD makes it really hard to avoid sometimes LOL – but like I try to be reasonable and love myself enough to avoid it when I can help it. I’m not willing to make my own problems everyone else’s problem, and I hope that some of these shit starters in fandom will get there, themselves.

So yeah it blows when the vibes are fucking atrocious, and it REALLY blows when it’s a fandom this small where you can’t avoid it. Even when it’s a vocal minority it really just kills the fucking mood.

BUT WHAT I WILL SAY.

Whenever I say shit like “write what you want to read” and we’re talking about fanfic, or even meta or even silly headcanon posts or jokes, that also means draw what you want to see, it also means make what you want to hold, apply it to any creation you can think of. Put the thing you want to see into the world. And it counts for fandom, too.

I don’t want to be part of a fandom that’s constantly infighting and attacking people, so I don’t fight and attack people. I don’t want to be called a predator for being a Marius fan and so I don’t engage in posts that say as much, not even to argue, because I don’t want my followers (who might also be Marius fans!) to have to see that on their dash. I want us to protect our peace and create a space we want to be in.

Like I have a policy that any time someone says I’m a freak or any time I see truly godawful word salad discourse, I go out of my way to post something kinky and offputting about Marius LMFAOOOO  because I want to be surrounded by reasonable fun people who share my sensibility for fiction. AND SOMETIMES IT’S CRICKETS, AND SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO WORK HARD TO FIND YOUR PEOPLE. But at the end of the day I know I’m being my most sincere self and I’m trying to have a good time and just post fun things that I enjoy. And like, the book fandom is small as fuck and we’re all famished, but I think if more of us did that, we’d build a much more productive and tolerant space.

And for all the shit I’ve mentioned, all the drama and attacks and all the times people have harassed me or tried to make me feel small, you know what? I just got back from @apoptoses & @cup-of-lixx 's wedding and they met in VCblr! We spent all week with our VCblr friends! We all went to New Orleans together last Halloween !

When I used to work on ships it was like a fandom friend world tour! I had so many coffees in port with my vampire friends!

I’ve learned so much about writing from all the time I’ve spent here and the community of writer friends who supported me! There’s folks I met on VCblr that I talk to LITERALLY every day! They are such huge parts of my life and genuine life-long friends!!!!!!

Sometimes it seems like the ROI is garbage but like, so much of finding the joy is also learning to protect yourself from the negativity.

It IS out there. It DOES suck. And it’s lonely when you haven’t found your people yet. But fandom doesn’t have to be the 500 angry assholes arguing with each other about a fucking TV show, it can be your 3 besties in a private group chat having a great time.

Like I just drove @hekateinhell to the airport (met THROUGH TUMBLR!) and on the way back I was listening to an episode of Last Day and they were discussing the concept that “community is a life raft” and it hit me so hard man!!!!!!!!!!!

Find your people! Block the shit starters! Mute discourse buzzwords that you know are going to upset you!

Keep! Posting! What! You! Want! To! See!!

Fandom is self-generating, we can do this!

My inbox is always open and BELIEVE ME I have been motherfucking persona non grata in this place before and I know how rancid the vibe can be so please come talk any time it's grinding you down, I got you!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kat-rose-griffith]

Hi. I love you blog ❤️

But I have an unpleasant question to ask. I hope it doesn’t bring your mood down and I hope that you may have some advice.

I love the Bridgerton community here and I genuinely enjoy the series analyses and the memes and love and praise for the actors. But you know how the situation with Luke has been recently.

I had to block #lukola and lukola content since the comments are mostly generated under this tag. I know that not everyone is using it romantically but I hoped that it will bring down the amount of posts that make me see red or genuinely depressed me. And I still have to block users just to remove their posts from my dash even though I thought that the filter may help.

I want to generate positivity instead of fighting but some posts are just THAT outrageous that I feel the need to dismantle them. By doing that I feel like I keep the hate train rolling simply by bringing the content of these posts into question in order to point out how harmful they are. I’ve also tried doing nothing and ignoring, but it feels like I’m letting the baseless cruelty slide and letting my principles and who I am at the core down.

I’m not sure what to do anymore and I’m thinking about stepping away from all social media for a while. But this thought also makes me sad because I used to love it here and I still (sometimes) do.

Do you have any advice? How do you deal with this? Maybe I have to filter something more? Do you see any way to contribute something good without fighting but also without hiding and running away from the tide?

If I’ve overstepped, I am sorry, and if you decide to remove the ask or not answer it I would absolutely understand. Thank you for listening in any case ❤️

Oh my gosh you’re so sweet. Thank you so much for enjoying my blog. That means so much to me and I truly appreciate it!

As far as advice goes I don’t know if I have a lot. I know it can get really hard to not let other peoples hatred and negativity bring you down. It can get really frustrating especially when the hate is as illogical and unwarranted as the harassment that the bridgerton actors, especially Luke, have been getting. It’s not guaranteed but hopefully the aggression will die down with some time as people move on with their lives. Just know that you’re not alone in these feelings.

I’m personally pretty susceptible to this kind of negativity too. That’s why tumblr is my only form of social media. The way that I try to work with those reactionary feelings is pretty similar to what you’re already doing. Whenever I see something that affects me like that I just block it and move on. Sometimes I do forget to do that and get wrapped up in scrolling through the hate or typing up a response, but then I have to stop myself and think if it’s really worth my time. I remind myself that these people want attention and they want the notes on their posts to feel validated in their opinions. It is hard but the best course of action is to try to just ignore them because they’re truly not worth the stress or energy.

With that I do want to say don’t be afraid to vent your feelings on your own blog. If you don’t feel comfortable putting it in the tag or associating it with your blog because you don’t want to deal with those people harassing you there that’s completely fine. You can always leave it untagged, type it up but leave it in your drafts, create a side blog just for that, or block them when they leave an upsetting comment. I’ve just found that it’s helpful to me to let out how I feel on here instead of holding it in and it’s especially helpful when I find people who actually get it and share my feelings. That’s actually one of my favorite things about tumblr.

Another thing that I try to do is just make my blog a nice place that I’m proud of, which is why you liking my blog has made me very happy. I try to share as many things that I like as I can. With the negativity in the tag surrounding Luke I’ve just been trying to counter it with any positive post that comes to my mind to drown out how negative and hateful some people have been. These people aren’t the majority, they’re just loud. That’s why whenever I’ve been making posts about this season I’ve been putting them in Luke and Nicola’s tags. If you have other social media accounts spamming the cast and their tags with love, complements, or just anything that’s not hateful to counter the hate spamming that they get is always a good idea too.

All that being said if it is all too much I always recommend just stepping away from social media for a second. It can be very overwhelming and hard to remember that it’s not real life, so if you ever feel like it’s effecting you too much just check in with yourself and walk away, for at least a bit.

I know that’s not great advice, but I’m going to post this in all of the tags that I use for bridgerton to see if anyone else has any advice that might be a bit more helpful. I’m very sorry that you’ve been experiencing this too and I hope that it gets better. Thank you so much for liking my blog, that really did make my day

[jinchuls-moved]

hi, important lil note

pseud change, jinx -> echo

you don’t have to read but there’s a not so thought out ramble of all the thoughts in my head rn under the cut. i feel like ive been tricking people and i want to explain myself

okay so, i moved blogs when i was in a very negative space. i only stayed away for about a month, i missed tumblr and i missed writing even if it took me a hot minute to feel good enough to even be semi active on here.

tumblr can fucking suck. i left because there was drama with a few people that left me a mess honestly, those people have since been blocked and i started to feel a little bit better. i also noticed a number of people breaking mutual with me, which i completely understand curate your space as you need i’ve done it a few times myself, but the amount of people that did in a short time (as far as i noticed) gave me a terrible feeling and i needed to leave. i felt unwelcome and like i had done something wrong to people i had only interacted with a few times. this was on top of a lot of stuff i had going on irl, i felt so fucking alone in every aspect on my life regardless of my friends that made it so obvious they were there for me. i hated how i was at the time, and i appreciate every single person that stuck by me.

so i made this blog for a fresh start. i thought a new pseud and a new blog would make me feel better. and it did, for a while. my friends knew and they listened to my request to change tags, not refer to me as any previous nicknames and essentially not make it too obvious it was me. although i don’t think it was entirely impossible to tell. but now i miss all those things, i miss being stupid with my friends, i miss getting to call my best friend my wife on dash, i miss getting to miss astrology aims and mother nesi nesi, i miss the mutuals i used to have that i didn’t tell about the move because i was scared they were going to think i was stupid. i miss the url i kept going back to bc i loved it (possibly the most silly reason but still ukaishin holds a special place in my heart)

and it just doesn’t feel right. everyone has been so nice to me so far and it feels wrong knowing that wasn’t how echo ended, it makes me wonder what was wrong with me then that wasn’t now? but reality is, it’s nothing. shit happens, i needed time to get over a lot of things and it took time. even quite recently i had a terrible evening because of an old mutual. as in i had a mental breakdown because they added one stupid word to an ask that made me feel pathetic for sitting there the night before crying about how much i was missing them to aims.

getting called jinx in dms throws me off, i appreciate those that knew me first as echo using the new pseud, but it never took. it was never a name i was happy with (except for the first couple weeks on this blog) and im sorry for any confusion and having to switch pseuds again. i just don’t want to move blogs, i don’t want to have a whole thing i just want tumblr to be the happy place it was for me for almost 2 years. it got me through uni, being on here with the friends i’d made, i spend my final year of school in a constant mental breakdown, crying on the phone to my mum almost everyday and it was kaze that kept me going, motivating me to get my degree. it was kaze that flew to england to meet me and attend my graduation. it was aims that was the first person to reach out to me and give me the type of friendship i needed. it was everyone in our silly delululand server that made me laugh and reminded me that no matter how shit people were there were good ones. and it’s the good that’s made me feel better. and the good that makes me want to try one more time to maintain that happy place i had 2 years ago

that got too sappy but i refuse to edit <3

[estelofrivendell]

Hey I just read the reply to the ask I sent out, and I just wanted to apologise!

I assumed you blocked me because of the fact you that you thought I was a bot and nothing else, which is why I created the new account to use. This was naive of me, so again I apologise.

Anyways I wanted to say sorry genuinely, because I guess im knew to tumblr so im not really sure how requesting works/ proper requesting/ blog interacting etiquette is handled, I definitely should have done more educating before jumping into making requests so I’m sorry for that.

In no way shape or form did I intend on disrespecting you or any other writes work, or kindness to fulfil a request! I certainly didn't intend to show a lack of appreciation by requesting a similar ask again, I just wondered how you or another blog might write a story with the a similar character dynamic but with your own unique plot line which would see the characters being put in different circumstances! This was truly my only intention, regardless I see how it is insensitive and not an appropriate thing to pester on about!

I honestly had no intention in trying to make it seem like I was dissatisfied with a previous Fic or that it would come across as an entitled action, and I definitely understand how it might, I should’ve considered this before and for that I’m truly sorry! Up until now I didn't realise that requesting a similar ask when it had already been so kindly written for would be disrespectful or hurtful, but I now understand it is and will absolutely not do it again!

I also definitely did not feel that you had to reply to each of my three requests I just sent out a bunch and thought that you might feel connected more to one of them or just genuinely more interested to write for one of the three asks. I kinda saw it as giving out a variety of options to pick Incase you liked any of them, but I realise now that it can seem quite pushy or greedy and have the opposite effect than I intended, and im so sorry for making you feel like I was trying to be exploitative!

Regardless of everything, In no way shape or form do I expect to you to accept this apology, I just thought deserved the apology either way, and I just wanted you to know that I’m genuinely sorry and will be more sensitive and considerate from now on, and will no longer interact with this blog which I should’ve respected before. I’m sorry again and I hope you do know that I appreciate your work nonetheless, you are an amazing writer and I’m sorry that I caused you stress and negativity. Wish you the best!

Hey,

I accept your apology and I respect you for understanding why it’s wrong. We all start out somewhere. Unfortunately many Tumblr users are very aggressive, I’m not using that as an excuse for how harsh I was but I’ve been on this site for many years now and people don’t like to apologise here. You handled it maturely.

I personally wouldn’t be bothered if you sent me those three requests once you asked me if it was okay or you directly stated I can choose which one, which you didn’t but you did address that in your apology. Slip ups happen. However some writers don’t like it at all and only want you to send one ask regardless. In that case you should read their rules carefully if it mentions that. If not, just send the request you want written out the most.

I already talked about in your last ask why sending it out to multiple authors is really distasteful so I won’t go much over that and you did understand why it’s something every fanfic writer looks down on. Your first request was detailed so it limits to a specific plot. If you had just sent out a simple prompt or a general request (which I think your most recent request was) then that’s where you would see the different takes writers have.

Have a good day/night Anon :)

[haleigh-sloth]

(1) I’ve largely erred on the side of not saying this because I don’t care to rain on anyone’s parade, but since you mentioned feeling like the friendship between Tomura and Spinner can get blown out of proportion, I can think of at least one concrete reason for why that disconnect might exist. I obviously don't blame people for taking the official translations at face value, but I feel like Spinner's line about "bonding" with Tomura over games is another example of sentiments getting

Ahhhhhh lot of good stuff here

Putting a cut for length but also people who just don't wanna see this type of response

I feel this way about a lot of peoples' interpretations of the League and their interactions. Not just Spinner and Shigaraki, but all of them. I feel like a lot of gestures get blown way out of proportion. Shigaraki's "I just want them to be able to live how they see fit" does not equal "Their happiness is my priority, and I'm going to work to create a world where they can be happy". I'm sorry but those two are not the same thing, and I haven't seen Shigaraki act in such a way either. Those two goals may point in the same direction (they don't because he's a fucking liar to his own face and so is Toga to her own face), but that kind sentiment did not suddenly mean that he is prioritizing their happiness and wellbeing above all else. If that was the case, well, they wouldn't have formed a giant ass army to take on the world at war and risk dying (which one of them did) and Spinner wouldn't be in the situation he is in now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

I don't want to rain on people's parades either, but my opinions are pretty clear and have been for a while and people have had plenty of time to block/unfollow me as they see necessary. So at this point, I don't hold back (I try very hard to avoid being super negative though about any character in general). I used to hold back my not so popular (in the villain corner of the fandom) interpretations on the League up until recently. As we've gotten closer to the end, I've decided that I'm just gonna put my opinion out into the void even if many people--specifically in the little circle of blogs I occupy--don't like it. And many don't, and that's okay. My opinion doesn't change unless the manga gives me a reason to change it.

Spinner and Shigaraki--I have a lot of issues here, MAJORITY of it due to fandom hyping them up as more than they are. And look, I don't care when stuff is clearly fanon or headcanons. Posts that are meant to be taken that way are usually pretty clear about it. But these are whole analyses based off of this overblown bond/friendship that literally only Spinner seems to acknowledge/be so attached to.

I don't doubt Shigaraki views everyone in the League as a friend in some capacity. I don't doubt that at all. I don't doubt that he cares and genuinely wants them to live how they want. However, I would like for someone to show me where he pays the same type of special attention to Spinner that Spinner gives to him. Imo, Shigaraki treats them all pretty equally--Spinner included.

I didn't know that about the Japanese, and yet, I still felt this way. Assuming that someone who has a good understanding of Japanese can correct your statement, I'm gonna take your word for it since I can't say shit otherwise lol. But cool--yeah that particular line is used quite a bit. And I get it! It's fun especially if you ship the characters or just enjoy their interactions.

But I feel like people overlook the fact that Spinner's idolization and attachment is literally negative and is a challenge in his arc, not some cute uwu friendship that was just about video games (when would they have played video games in canon??? WHEN????).

Spinner decided to seriously devote himself to Shigaraki (which in itself is a weird not great thing to do) during MVA, because it looked as if Shigaraki had made progress and overcome a barrier and become this all powerful destructive god who can make dreams come true (dreams for someone who wants to lash out at least). But MVA was not any of that. MVA was Shigaraki doing exactly what AFO wanted him to do--get worse emotionally, spiral more mentally and become even more unstable, and hate himself to the point that he sees no point in thinking or hoping for change for the better. Perfect, all according to keikaku. And THAT is when Spinner was like "FUCK YEAH THIS GUY". I know Spin didn't know that, but come oN guys THE TIMING OF IT IS SO FORETELLING.

AND IT WAS. Because look now. What has turned me completely off to this dynamic is the fandom hyping it up as a pure devotion that isn't stemming from a lot of self-worth issues and negative idealization. Spinner associates Shigaraki with destruction, rage, anger, and misery. That's also what Shigaraki associates himself with, and that's exactly what AFO wants. And man, he sure got it out of both of them.

And I'd like it if people acknowledged that more for what it is, but it's just reduced down to "two gamers that AFO groomed and took advantage of". And I feel that is just super oversimplifying what actually happened. AFO didn't groom Spinner from the age of 5, he took advantage of a vulnerability he was able to pinpoint super quickly after Spinner made it painfully obvious.

I like Spinner more on his own, and I like the potential for him to face the reality that him ignoring his gut instincts in favor of that dream of destruction he associates with Shigaraki eventually led to him making things worse for Shigaraki--unintentionally. I mean he hasn't made shit hit the fan YET--but man if things aren't looking ominous as fuck right now. AFO is counting on Spinner? Oof. But the potential for drama here is exciting, and I'm ready for it.

But yeah. I agree--it's overblown imo. It has become a plot point in Shigaraki's arc in a negative way. So I feel people miss the mark when they focus on how devoted Spinner is to Shigaraki during all of this mess, because that's exactly why things look the way they do lol.

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

My fellow RWDE people I’ve seen online/interacted with have all been very nice. It kind of pains me that us RWBY critics (aka the more reasonable watchers of the show imo) are presented as bad, destructive, etc.

And I don’t like that we’re called RWDE since it makes us appear as jerks…

Also, people are making rumors that we like Jaune and would like the show if it was all about men? The heck?

It has honestly been the same for me anon! Everyone I've met in the RWDE tag has been very pleasant and fun to talk with! You and me both anon. I am not a fan of the whole RWDE thing because as you said it paints us in this very negative light and makes us seem unreasonable and harmful ect.

The issue is for some reason a lot of the FNDM has decided we are just mindless haters that refuse to see any good in RWBY which is kind of funny to me because why would we waste so much time on a show we didn't see something in. I see a lot of potential in RWBY and their are a lot of elements I do enjoy, why do you think I write so much RWBY content now? Their is good stuff, but their are a lot of issues that I want to discuss so I do so on my personal blog that I properly label so people can block as needed.

These people however do not care about those facts, they just want to be angry and no one calls them out when they harass us so they keep doing it.

And oh do not get my started on that bullshit, most RWDE posters complain Jaune takes up too much screentime and that the mains don't get that development they deserve and I am included in that. I may love James but I know the show is called RWBY and I want to root for them and believe in them but with what they did in V8 I just can't.

[anachrosims]

the sims community communications psa:

This post has been stewing for about a year now, so if anyone thinks this is directed at them... It’s not. 

These are a collection of communication issues I’ve seen rampant in the Sims community (and, let’s face it, the internet as a whole) especially in the last five or so years.

Communication is a skill, and it’s one that we are all hopefully continuously working on. Like any other skill, some people have a natural knack for it, but it is something every person could stand to take more lessons in no matter how well spoken they may be.

Each of these are things that I know I need to work on keeping up with. They are in no way intended to say that I don’t ever do any of these. In fact, these are all advice based on my own learning experiences and I hope they can help 

- - -

- If someone has done something to wrong you-- whether they have been overly aggressive in private/public and said something you disagree with, if they have been rude to your friends... --SEND THEM A CALM, CIVIL DM. Do NOT go off making a massive callout post or sending them aggressive DMs. 9 times out of 10, stepping away to breathe, and coming back to send a person a private, CALM and CIVIL private message, will yield WAY BETTER RESULTS.

- Don’t air your laundry in front of everyone at the drop of a hat. I know Twitter/Insta/Tumblr etc would suggest otherwise, but the whole world does not need to know about your beef with someone else. Callout posts should be a LAST RESORT. Even if the other person has been rude in their own posts and public communications, their childishness does not excuse YOU from acting like just as much of a twat.

- Don’t let other people’s behavior dictate the kind of person you are. I know this is way, way easier said than done. Coming from a person with severe social anxiety (and panic attacks), trust me, I GET IT. This is why learning when to NOT SAY SOMETHING, even if you are 100% justified in doing so, is a vital skill. Learn. To. Pick. Your. Battles.

- Do not harass/send hate/flames/slurs/etc. I don’t care if that ho over there just ate a damn baby, don’t go using racist/homophobic/whateverthefuck slurs and threatening insults, actual threats, etc. If you do that to people, you are PART OF THE PROBLEM.

- Learn. To. Respect. Boundaries. If you want to talk to someone about something very important, be methodical and respectful. I know it can be very frustrating, especially if you feel hurt/wronged. If someone says, “hey, I had a bad day at work, can we talk about this another time?” DON’T BE A DICK ABOUT IT. If someone does not respond to your DM within a few hours, DON’T BE A DICK ABOUT IT by posting little passive aggressive “hints” to ping their notifications. Fucking wait your damn turn. If you want to be respected by someone, being demanding like that is one of the worst ways to go about it. Is that how you want to be treated? No? Then don’t fucking do it.

- If someone takes advantage of your patience, and keeps saying they don’t want to talk about something, just block them. Chances are good that they are either going through something that’s really keeping them from having the spoons to hash something out with you, or they’re stringing you along. Either way, you may not get the closure you feel you need from them, but they are still not worth mental/emotional anguish. It’s okay to let them go. Don’t let them live rent-free in your head.

- Don’t fill your blog/chats/servers/whatever with constant negativity and drama. I see people do this, living catty lives and being constantly negative, and then they wonder why they’re always miserable and why everything always sucks. Take it from someone who is disabled several ways to Sunday and has severe major depression: Life sucks, and the only way you are going to find happiness is by fighting for it. Be more positive in your day to day chatting, post “thank yous” at random, if you see something you don’t like, guess what? You don’t have to complain about it. People will get tired of nonstop shitstirring and that includes YOU. Spare yourself and your friends the mental exhaustion and instead of posting about how you think all male sims are ugly or how you think TS2 or TS3 are for losers, just.... don’t. And if you can’t think of something else to talk about, maybe that’s a sign you really should start trying to change up your conversations.

- Block all TERFs. I mean, this is just good advice in general.

- You are allowed to step away from the keyboard. You are allowed to (POLITELY) tell someone, “I really need to step away from this right now.” It does help to communicate to others that you DO still want to discuss things, but you have every right to take some time to yourself. If they can’t respect that, even if YOU have hurt them, that is on THEIR shoulders, not yours.

[thattimdrakeguy]

I blocked a guy who gave me an ask about why I like Tim ‘cause apparently he’s a dirty sexist, racist, rich, white boy. 

Since well, I’m never going to have an interesting conversation with them, ‘cause I’ve never once seen anybody say that, and continue onto their other posts and see anything to make me think they’d believe that if they weren’t over-invested in their interests.

But I’ve been seeing that idea thrown around a lot lately.

Just to say quickly, because it’s not really the Tim part of this I’m concerned about, I’ve yet to see any proof of Tim being sexist, that’s actually proof of him being sexist. It’s done nothing but show me people don’t know what sexism is, or at the very least can’t understand what the term ‘context’ means. Because they’ll blatantly ignore that and throw in their own version of it. Which, I’m gonna be blunt, I think if you’re bothering to do that over somebody that doesn’t exist. I think you’re an idiot. As harsh as it sounds I doubt anyone could give me a reason why I shouldn’t think trying to prove a fictional character, that’s obviously never intended to be portrayed as a sexist is sexist, isn’t a massively stupid thing to do.

And all I can say for the part that bugs me more is: Rule of thumb, if someone makes everything about race without a reason that can be explained as having some thought and reason put into it beyond bad faith, you probably shouldn’t take it too seriously, because social media has become increasingly more obviously filled with people looking for attention rather than actually saying anything worth saying.

There are a lot of intelligent people out there on social media giving good lessons about subtle racism, and things that people do that they don’t realize can actually come off as condescending to minorities or other things. And they are extremely good reads can help you better yourself. Or even larger issues that you may have never thought about, and how it pushes down on minorities. Sometimes just representations in fiction.

Because talking about race, and gender, and sexuality isn’t my problem with it. There’s still a lot to learn. It’s people who use it because they’re petty, and want to convince themselves their doing the morally correct thing by talking about it. Incredibly the number of likes on a post doesn’t mean jackshit. And here I was thinking more people have learned this by now.

And as shocking as it may be, I’ve never seen any of these people who have brought up intelligent matters with thoughtfulness and reason, act like reading way too much into fiction because a popular blog did it, is any actual act of activism. Or that simply being white means something. I’ve actually seen them think that stuff is ridiculous and has a negative impact on the actual real life matters.

I’m sorry but if you genuinely think that a character is as well-liked as they are because they’re white, you live in a delusion. I’m not claiming no one ever likes a character ‘cause they’re white, because look, there’s a lot of bad people out there. But to act like everyone that likes a character, that conveniently is in constant comparison to your fav, is racist, or at least a large enough group of people to say it, is simply idiocy. You’re not doing anything but making things look like a joke to anyone that isn’t desperate for their virtue card.

There is a lot of things that deserved to be talked about. Playing stupid over petty arguments doesn’t deserve the time of day.

And pro-tip if someone in the fandom constantly undermines everything one character does to lessen it’s impact, but exaggerating everything another does to overblow another's impact, they likely are only using something as a tool to just fulfill what’s in their head. Often enough with the intention of just wanting a lot of attention, even if they’re desperately trying to make it come off like it’s more than that. You aren’t likely to learn anything real from them.

If you can’t process an actually well-thought out reason why someone is saying such a thing, there are very good odds it’s not well-thought out.

Why do you think fandom’s get laughed at everywhere outside of them? Or even sometimes inside of them? It’s because they’re ridiculous, and you have to take everything with copious amounts of salt. You’ll legitimately become less intelligent otherwise. And I’m not saying this because “Oh I like Timmy”, ‘cause I’ve seen stuff said that’s even stupider than this specific argument I got.

There’s a lot of serious topics I wish people would talk about more out there, but won’t get taken seriously anymore because so many people overuse it for things that don’t actually concern it. It’s like crying wolf, but for a whole entire group of people, that just want to be equal without some dickhead making a fool of themselves.

If you think saying anything negative at all towards a woman is sexist, or you have to say “Should’ve talked about in the comics more” (Since that likely means, as shitty as the writing was. Whatever you’re getting out of it likely isn’t there since these characters are supposed to be heroes), or any negative emotion towards a POC character regardless of context is a racist. You’re not exactly supporting those communities. You’re fucking babying them. You’re making a joke out of it that is in no way helping them. You are severely undermining them the more and more it happens.

When an actual, honest to God moment of sexism or racism comes along. It is time to talk about it.

Acting like everything about a character (Since I don’t see these people ever worrying about anyone that’s a real human) is their minority status, when it clearly isn’t, is a roundabout way of ending up being sexist, or racist, or whatever bigotry. Because you’re just not treating them like people ever. It’s patronizing.

Like I’m not even talking about the Tim thing anymore. I just know that I actively see people of color, or different genders, in some contexts and situations members of the LBGT+ community actively express annoyance and disgust about these things, but no one cares because they want their virtuous card. It’s about doing these things that in reality are making people treat real life issues a little less seriously every time.

Yet, boy oh boy, random people have to take serious issues and make it about their fictional fav.

And I feel like I talk about it a lot. Usually not in paragraphs. But the more I see people doing it, and genuine people talking against it, that these people doing it think they’re defending, it gets more depressing.

Supporting minorities isn’t fetishizing them or infantilizing their own issues, or generally obsessing over whatever it is that makes them a minority.

Supporting them is treating them like equals and learning to recognize the warning sign of what to say and what not to say becomes an ignorant moment comes along, and supporting them when a genuine bigot comes along. Not sounding the alarm over nothing because you’re crying over a drawing with words on it.

I appreciate authentic people, but people who have a bad habit of sounding this alarm over nothing, never feel authentic.

Real issues deserve to be treated with respect. Not as a buzzword.

[hongheejoo]

Could we all just please stop talking about el/riels? It's been very bad since El/riels spread new theories around that involve CC2 and Gwynriels called them out on it and explained how this and that wouldn't work or make sense.

Every blog like @yazthebookish @bookofmirth @mercurianbisous @spell-cleavers and you have adressed these theories and their behaviours and all said the same thing about those theories and then all of a sudden fights broke out between el/riels and gwynriels/eluciens. The Gwynriel tag is full of anti el/riel and some even accidentally tagged "anti elriel" instead of "anti el*riel" and so even more fights broke out. This is no hate on you or anyone else and I understand why you guys are calling them out, but I like to see more Gwynriel content and it drains my energy everytime I see anti el/riel posts. Since we adressed it all, could we maybe go back to enjoying the ships?

(Has nothing to do with you, it's to all who read this)

I get what you’re saying, fandom negativity like this is exhausting. I’ve been through it many times in many different fandoms

We’re each responsible for our own actions and experiences. Blocking and filtering is super helpful at hiding whatever someone doesn’t want to see. It’s ok to unfollow or filter out from our own fandom too, mental health is the most important!

A lot of fandom culture is reacting to other people. There’s going to be fighting no matter what. People are going to tag things incorrectly, often on purpose. We can’t control how the e/riels or our fellow shippers chose to react or use their blogs. I do my best to tag correctly, not start fights, and if I see someone bullying I’ll say something. That’s all I can do.

The good news is soon this will all die down! The bad news is, unfortunately, it will happen again, as is the nature of this fandom.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

I'm am completely tired of people crapping on villians and not trying to understand their perspectives I am really sick of the fandom doing all this

Me too, anon, me too. That's exactly why I create this blog.

I've said it before, but if someone decides to ignore the villains and their narratives through the manga, that person is not going to be able to read correctly the main arc.

In bnha / mha, the villains are not simple side characters. Shigaraki Tomura has the same relevance as Midoriya Izuku, for example. They are direct parallels and together they work as the representations of the theme. If my speculations and metas are correct, you have all the main characters directly interacting with the villains to reach the climax of the series.

Besides, it really frustraste me that people are unable to appreciate a character and how that character is written just because that said character is not "good". It completely takes the depth of the characters and the complexity of their buildings and create a shallow storyline. Even the characters in kids TV shows have different degrees of good and bad traits, because we are in an era of writing where we're exploring how real a character can get.

People can say "I like shallow, simple characters with very explicit plots that don't challenge my comprehension or my mind" and that would be perfectly fine, there's no shame in liking simple stuff. Instead, they invent every type of excuses to hate characters? And I mean, you can hate a character for your own personal reasons, but instigating a crusade against that character and the fans?

Also, many fans are unable to understand that there are not universal rules to judge characters WITHOUT the context. Lately I've seen so many people bringing things out of context and directly violating the original material not in rational ways (admitting something is fan modified, fan made, personal takes, etc) but in harmful serious ways, by telling others that what they see is the only possible point of view on the matter.

For example, I'm totally able to say that I hate Overhaul in the canon for what he did but I'm pretty much interested in the implications of his writing. I can write many aus about Overhaul without liking the character in a sentimental way, just because I as a writer want to explore the possibilities within this character. I can totally say Boku No Hero Academia is not the best written manga and still entirely love and rant about the worldbuilding daily.

When it comes to the villains, it is simply annoying to me how people refuse to acknowledge that they are some of the best written characters in the manga. Toga is one of the best written female characters in mha / bnha, Dabi has an intricate personal arc that involves the values of the hero system itself and Shigaraki Tomura is— I don't even have words for the amount of dedication Horikoshi put in Tomura. He's been driving the plot along with Izuku this whole time. I can even argue that Shigaraki is better written than Izuku, because he is way more deep in terms of motivations, psychological traits and way of acting.

People is free to hate the villains, but to refuse to see the greatness of their writing? And even then, it's incredible the amount of issues I've seen within the fans regarding the villains.

For example: Spinner as a character represents the racism within the bnha / mha world. He is an incredible character, he narrates the MVA arc, he's been there for the almost every arc of the villains... And yet he lacks popularity. Why? I know studio bones tends to take him out of the anime, but this also has a reason. Why studio bones thinks Spinner is not as relevant or popular as the others? It's safe to assume a group of fans don't care about him only because he "doesn't have the look".

Sometimes when I point out that the League is right about MANY issues within the hero system, some fans go great lengths to defend the heroes and shut down my arguments. I don't personally understand how people likes to ignore the fact that pro-heroes in bnha / mha are a mixture of the police-the army with the celebrity world. In the real world, we're right now living a whole situation regarding the values behind the police existence and the negative side of putting celebrities like they are gods. You can clearly see it reflected on the bnha / mha universe, the villains clearly point out the privileges of the pro-heroes and why the system promoting and manipulating such privileges has created the catastrophe they're going through. But apparently fans don't want to read that? Because heroes are supposed to be good and villains are supposed to be bad, I guess. They don't understand the hero-villain narrative has been dehumanizing the characters and the main arc of bnha / mha is working on it to show that more than heroes and villains and citizens, there are complex humans who don't fall into an absolute.

I'm sorry for ranting about this anon, but every time I read "villain fan" as in derrogatory, I laugh because I'm baffled. Most stories need a good antagonist for it to work. There are MANY types of antagonists and MANY types of villains and they just– they just ignore it? Like it is nothing? And then they pretend to judge the villains by only taking tiny parts of their personalities and stories and they pretend to say that is accurate?

I don't know what to say to that. I can only write meta to help people understand the villains better and show them why they are so important and impressive. If they don't want to acknowledge it, that's their problem.

I love to talk and discuss people with different points of view as long as we're able to keep things respectful, but the minute they start attacking me without even listening to my arguments, good bye.

I thank God for the block button every single day of my life.

Well, I hope you're having a great day, anon. Please remember to drink water, take your meds, eat enough, sleep enough and don't forget to breath deep and use the block button and the content and tag filters as much as you want.