#It's sad to see a fandom become so toxic that it destroys itself

[katyspersonal]

In defence of Shadow of the Erdtree + Getting my grudges with the fandom's bad takes off my chest

(! if you are seeing this caption it means the post was shared via queue feature, thus I must be STILL on my hiatus! will respond to comments when I am back online and thank all 5 of you for waiting for me! )

*deep, tired sigh* Allllright so... Ever since SoTE came out, it has been a rocky patch for me growing past initial shock, absorbing new lore and above all, dealing with some conflicts that transpired over it! In the end my grudges, as well as disagreements with popular attacks on this DLC accumulated enough to make me feel like smoking volcano, I swear.. You might have observed some anger already slipping through the cracks, but I've decided to place ALL of my opinions in one easily skippable post instead of turning my blog into a toxic pool with endless negative posts, so I'll just get to it!!

YEAH YEAH I know, a TRUE comedy genius remaking my DLC predictions bingo post to structure what I want to address fdhhdsf This is basically a 'so how is checking Elden Ring tag going today? :)' bingo but... it is easier to put it like this. I just need some way to simply vent my own frustrations because I hate everything featured in this image with THE burning rage. Putting my opinions and everything under cut but fair warning, not only it is going to be very long as if anyone who knows me is surprised dfhshfsd, but also very ANGRY! ANYWAYS!

1) "They excused genocide by giving Marika a sad backstory"

Sigh… Instantly off to a terrible start, and it is truly the most Tumblr take out of all Tumblr takes imaginable. So let me suggest something actually ground-breaking here… Giving your villain reasoning not only makes for a more realistic and interesting character, but is also crucial because nobody is just BORN evil.

sorry I had to I understand the temptation of wanting a villain whose sole drive is power control preserving privileges etc because it resonates more with the narratives proposed in real life and people's struggles, but not only even in real life things are FAR not as often as simple… but even if they were, Fromsoft is always dealing with more complicated matters that touch the nature of existence in general, and not just power and control over it someone could gain! Marika was not "just" evil even in the base game either, giving off the impression of someone wanting to build a perfect world of light, life, safety and abundance even at the expense of oppressing "potential threat" species (Omens serving as…. well, omens of the threat of returning to the primordial state of things or Albinaurics, creation of Nox, who angered the Greater Will itself once).

She waged war on the Fire Giants who had 'evil god of fire', caused natural disasters and whose fire existed as anathema to the Erdtree and declared her victory the start of the "better age"! That already spoke of a lot of complexity, without forcing the audience to agree with her motivations and actions but instead understand what weight they held in the grand scheme of things! Again: much like Gwyn who destroyed Dragons thus creating time, light and life the way it is known now and who for all his agenda against humans had a pretty solid reason to fear the darkness within them, which effects we've seen across the trilogy!

What DLC did add was simply a lore on Marika's origins as a Goddess, and what made her vulnerable enough for the Two Fingers to seek her! Divinity is further stated to not be a great thing via Miquella's whole arc, but the wish to change the world to the better hits harder when you personally were a victim of its fundamental corruption! She did not instantly become a good person over DLC lore, nor she was just evil person and nothing else in the base game! War against Fire Giants (maybe Dragons?) was the means to topple the current powers and establish her reign, oppressing certain species was the mean to preserve it. She searched not solely to take revenge on the Hornsent, but to build a different world where what they did would not happen, ironically ending up causing more injustice ANYWAYS! Miquella fell into this trap. Heck, GIDEON fell into this trap!

Even then, her machiavellian character does not explain why even after Hornsent were completely defeated that war continues forever through Messmer and his forces. Could this be just what Messmer insisted on and THUS she cast him away, or she lost any and all sight of what pusher her to it initially? In either case, even the game itself makes it very clear that Marika/Messmer are not heroes here in the SLIGHTEST!

On a more general note, detached from the specifics of this game: I do still find it more strange to be angry about villains being given sympathetic traits, as a concept. People who are just "born evil" are such a minority that they hardly can say anything about nature of men. Bad people, by proxy, are a combination of some sort of unhappy event (trauma, bad upbringing, faced oppression, mental illness that was not treated if not had its negative traits amplified due to environment, growing in propaganda and ignorance, abuse etc) and person's unwillingness or even inability to heal and stop the cycle of pain by refusing to cause more of it. It is not that simple, and often, people who were hurt so are past the point of not letting it make THEM evil, or lack resources to do so, or have their attempts to change if they WERE bad actively sabotaged.

This IS the true horror of existence: freedom of will itself being put in question. We might be not defined by our pain, but how we will respond to it might be defined by prior events, information we had, circumstances and society around us. How can ANYONE tell what they would be like if they endured the same? Can we be sure that we "endured the same but reacted differently" wasn't predefined by other, nicer factors? To be angry at the fact that a bad person who did bad things had a reasonable, even sympathetic explanation at the core of it all is to be angry that one's privilege to use "born evil" to mistreat and emotionally distance from those people is put into question!

In any case, 'explanation is not an excuse' works not only as a tool to still judge someone's sins, but ALSO to explain that writers making a character more elaborate is not a demand to like this character or excuse their actions! Everything has reason… This is why no one is entitled to declare they know what is good and bad for everyone. Not just people like Marika or Gwyn, but even us.

2) "Hornsent are dangerous and deserved extermination"

…okay, look, yes this is another heavy topic, and it does deserve a separate post which I did make already in the past ( x )! It is another topic that sort of transcends the boundaries of this story (another common Fromsoft W for making people question life and society themselves)! To put it down simply, of course no race is inherently evil, what is the reoccurring topic here is the culture! And what is on the surface is that Hornsent as culture and species, in many ways, are victims of its own oppressive religious institution and questionable traditions. Bonny Village's potentates are hostile, dangerous cult serving as a the weapon of """justice""" and """purification""" within Hornsent! They possibly go back-to-back with their religion but except they are extremist. We cannot tell whether general face of the religion, the Inquisitor hags, would do anything about it had they have more control, whether they tolerate it for convenience, or whether they encourage and utilise its existence. But what we CAN tell is that not only "impure races" are punished/killed, but even "unfaithful" Hornsent themselves!

Yes, definitely there are also Hornsent children who would have no choice regarding their upbringing, information, nor much agency over their actions, and we know they did not spare the children either from the story of Hornsent NPC that we follow! But even then, it is clear that Hornsent that were in disagreement about their culture's demands had to be quiet about it either, or else they'd likewise be persecuted!

"Why could not they just have started a revolution" is a very unfair criticism towards a culture/place oppressed by corrupt religious (and military?) institution on many levels! As someone from the country ruled by a tyrant feeding the civilians propaganda excusing genocide and promoting xenophobia, as well as very corrupt and oppressive religious institution that yet is hardly a HALFWAY as awful as some countries I could explain how hard (impossible) it is to reliably as much as gather enough people to rebel (with no results but legal troubles down to getting imprisoned). Let alone gather enough people to go an die for the cause. Especially when almost everyone with ANY power and weapons is already by the government's side completely rotten by propaganda. Feeling outnumbered, not having any resources because they're all in the hands of people who ARE corrupt, knowing even out of other people who disagree most would not risk leaving their children and sick relatives and alike in trouble rising up against the enemy they can't reliably take down is already a huge problem here. Even considering the (very idealistic) sentiment that dire consequences doesn't erase the blame that comes from not speaking up, it doesn't change that there are real and reasonable people who don't agree! Let alone the separate topic of how even people rotten by propaganda deserve a chance for rehabilitation! Propaganda is a horrifying tool and not having immunity to it should not be automatic death sentence!

Shadow Realm is already full of burn Hornsent spirits questioning what did they even do wrong and claiming they only wanted to live and didn't do anything, further proving that they might not even be much aware of what their Inquisitors and Potentates do, let alone not being a solid monolith race of those who agree with extermination of the "impure"! They are people, living in conditions of the culture held by the throat of those truly evil! It were a bunch of civilians burnt, as well as Hornsent's (NPC) wife and child who 99.99% didn't do anything. To think of it, it makes it very bitter that Bonny's Village and Inquisitors in the Tower clearly were able to recover and bounce back, when it were civilians who payed the price. Very grim yet clever remark about the real world as well, but I am sidetracking. In general, yes, a culture that considers itself holier than others with extremist forms of it deeming them unworthy of living should be stopped and criticised, but genocide can NEVER be the answer!

^^^ It fact, something already suggests there was a different answer, an even obvious one. Marika's "betrayal" suggests a long social game on her part, as well as the fact that Hornsent culture were trusting her! Maybe they knew she was a shaman and things were happening past the point where they stopped persecuting them, maybe they had no idea. Yet, in any case, Marika held enough social power to bridge the gap between the cultures, to let them evolve beyond their past, traditions and prejudice against 'outsider' cultures and instead learn from them!

^^^ In fact, the gap was bridged, since Crucible, THE Hornsent thing, WAS considered divine even as Golden Order was established! That was like… after getting Elden Ring instead of Dragons (whatever the reason was), war with the Fire Giants and murder of the Fell God and removal of Destined Death from the Elden Ring? Nonetheless, with the power to stop vicious cycle and to let the horrible practices and past be buried and dissolve in her new order of life and radiance, so-to-say "civilization", she chose the path of genocide and revenge that has not ended even to this day! As well as essentially became "the very thing she sworn to destroy" by keeping those like Omens and Albinaurics oppressed!

And to bring back the previous chapter of this post, it is not an invitation to say 'aww then it is fair that she hates Omens so much 🥺', but a pointer that what she did was wrong. And so, yet again, the cycle continues, take Vengeance-Seeking Hornsent that swears to kill not only her and her family, but everyone affiliated with her in any way even if they were innocent and simply were born under such order! He mirrors how she/Messmer did not simply stop at punishing those who WERE guilty, how violence and revenge will always only birth more of violence and revenge, until someone decides to stop it and chose to solve the situation the pacifist way to their best ability. Even when some people claim that within this option those who will want their power back can survive and ruin everything again: likewise, if culture is exterminated, victims will survive and come back with revenge. Either way suggests the risk, but only one of these ways has even a CHANCE of better future! What IS certain is that humanity could never be at better place unless we as species keep trying peace over and over, that won't banish all evil from the first try, but we must choose peace and not genocide over and over!

3) "Miquella's character was assassinated"

No, it wasn't.

OKAY FINE but it is one of the topics that are hard to approach seriously, when someone mistakes the arc of the character falling from grace to a complete rewrite of the character's personality! How falling from grace inherently suggests there was no grace to BEGIN with? Character assassination suggests Chloé Bourgeois from Ladybug that the character has been written a certain way, but then deliberate effort was done by the writers to damage their image and make the audience hate them or no longer care about them!

What we learned about Miquella from the base game was all information about him from the times long before we, player, arrived in the game, and before his departure in the Shadow Realm! He was kind, he cared about his sister to the point of creating a new school of magic and then creating Unalloyed Gold all to heal her, he wanted a gentler order than the Golden Order and created his own tree that welcomed everyone but first of all those oppressed by the Golden Order, he wished his brother Godwyn could die honourably instead of being a growing virus to all living past death. At the same time, he naturally needed military force to protect his Haligtree, as well as was able to bewitch people with his powers!

In Shadow of the Erdtree, nothing that followed erased that information! In fact, he still boldly stated that he wanted Age of Compassion! What we DID witness though were two things: 1) the fact that he had to get a bit machiavellian, something that already was obvious from the base game because kindness alone is not enough to survive in this world and you HAVE to do some planning as the leader up against the current order with its own fans, as well as people who hate the compassion as an idea and 2) that he has been leaving behind what made him the person that he was, including his feelings and attachments, which logically included caring for Malenia for example! So, the dearest sister is 'loyal blade', because he abandoned his love! He does not still love Radahn either, but Radahn was a part of the promise; a very pragmatic thing and memory that did not have to go as his feelings did. He simply was part of the initial plan to ascend to Godhood; Miquella sounded scared of the idea when he asked Radahn to be there for him, but abandoning his fears and doubts would not automatically erase the OATH. Effectively, a "contract".

Miquella was hyped up as that kind, almost perfect, noble person, for us to find out that he is not anymore. The 'anymore' part here is crucial! Fromsoft have previously did the trick with hyping a character up to be great but us finding out they were not with Vendrick and Gwyn (and very briefly with Artorias who didn't DO anything yet was hyped as THE hero when he was in fact defeated)! Miquella repeats the trend with reveal that he did charm Mohg back then (was not perfect in his actions, but I'll get to it later), but also has the story of further descent from that not-perfect-yet-GOOD person that we follow! He is effectively the most elaborate incarnation of the concept, and we know Elden Ring includes Fromsoft learning from their previous games a lot, polishing the concepts they want to use! Miyazaki confirmed that Elden Ring is "close" to the dark fantasy game of his dream, yet is still not it (someone stop this madman fhfdhs)!

To suggest that revealing him as complex, as well as adding the tragedy of repeating Marika's mistakes no matter how much he was running from this sad fate, equates the devs wanting us to hate him (that is what CA is) is ABSURD! He REALLY did not want to be Marika, he was AVOIDING it, yet no matter what, it caught up to him... How comes you equate tragedy and imperfection with suggesting that you should hate him according to the writers' intention? I will go further and say that if your expected reaction to finding out your fav was never perfect in the world where perfection doesn't survive, and had road to Hell paved with good intentions is 'oh devs made him hateable' it only speaks of your own lack of understanding and compassion. Miquella is as much of the victim of this wretched world as everyone else, where you die a hero, remain a lazy fence-sitter or try to do something but only drastic means to do it make a change. Really, this is just Fromsoft's world and Elden Ring is in no obligation to change their philosophy of existential horror!

4) "Fromsoft failed fans by not making it [insert a thing from a wishlist]"

It could be a bit subjective, but personally I think this is simply not how creativity works as a concept. This kind of criticism suggests that upon deciding on the DLC, developers were supposed to look at the fandom's discussions, determine what would be most emotionally satisfying for them, and go that route regardless of what their vision of the story was or what…? It feels like a very entitled kind of thinking for me. Creator's one task is to bring their own vision to life and tell the story and messages they want to deliver! Not to cater to the audience, not to tell them what they want to hear, not to do what sells well or, god forbid, fanservice. (and you can probably see in which paragraph I will need to touch this one too!)

Miyazaki has a rather grim vision of the world and humanity, that is not completely nihilist and devoid of hope, but never gives the coherent answer to what the better future IS either. Character Aldia from Dark Souls 2 (and vaguely in DS3) is probably the best personification of his philosophy. The world is wretched, but the means to change it are so terrible that one might question whether it is even all worth it and whether the new world built on sacrifices is truly better, toppling the corrupt power just replaces it with the other corrupt power unless you decide to straight up destroy the world, but there must be something, right? We just lack insight to understand what it IS, but how can we obtain that knowledge without losing our humanity? Happy ending or blunt message about how if you remove corrupt authority things will magically be good are not his style.

And… regarding smaller things, honestly? He had a right to throw in a random ship that didn't have any foreshadowing if he wanted! It is HIS story and HIS characters! Creator must not obstruct THEIR vision and preferences for anyone, but it is OUR choice whether to take it or leave it. Just because we gave Elden Ring that kind of popularity and influence with huge amount of support and bought copies of the game doesn't mean that now Miyazaki is under obligation to serve us and think about our reception and tastes as sort of "gratitude" or whatever… And on a relevant note, it is his choice which topics he wanted to explore in SoTE and which topics he was done with and decided to leave be.

Again I might be different, as the very moment we had a DLC confirmed I emotionally distanced from Elden Ring knowing that any headcanons and expectations could get jossed at this rate! Getting invested into series that is still in development suggests obvious risks! No one is obligated to ENJOY whatever choices he made, but what we should do is to remember that he had RIGHT to HIS choices.

5) *claiming all hinted that it obviously should have been Godwyn*

I've heard it often that base game all foreshadowed that Miquella was departing in the Shadow Realm to bring Godwyn back to life, Eclipse thing and all, therefore SoTE "betrayed" fans by not focusing on Godwyn. Everything was supposedly set up for him to be prominent or maybe to be a final boss instead, even if he'd be a through and through failed attempt of resurrecting him! But…

Even in the base game, it was suggested that 'Eclipse' was already attempted, and failed. Nothing to suggest that they would go and try again via different means. And, in fact, there is another piece of evidence that Miquella was not going to attempt another way of resurrecting Godwyn! 'Please die a true death' suggests that Miquella wanted Godwyn to not exist as Prince of Death, but to die fully; with his body too, not only his soul.

This is certainly not about resurrection, so it is safe to assume that Golden Epitaph was made as Miquella gave up the hope of returning Godwyn's soul to him! 'Eclipse' was attempted, and it failed! Moreover, 'Eclipse' is a thing associated with the Castle Sol / Mountaintops! Nothing to suggest that it is properly done in the Shadow Realm, it is very much Lands Between's thing to do. (could it be relevant that Fell God of the Fire Giants was killed, and even before Furnace Visage thing his fire was shaped like an orb, so like a sun? no sun to eclipse to begin with? now Erdtree is THE source of light? some fuel for interpretations)

This is not the only reason, as we have a more bold one, that is Fia's quest getting broken! One of the endings is Fia laying with Godwyn and bearing a Rune to bring Those who live in Death back in the Elden Ring, and one of the remembrance bosses is Fortissax fighting within his dream! If Miquella's goal was to go and try to resurrect Godwyn, that would already remove his body from that area by the very existence of the DLC! So, should have Fia's quest/ending and Fortissax battle been timed events only for pre-DLC era? Or, again, if you say that event would only happen if we followed the entire DLC story to the final battle: Fromsoft's DLCs typically do not have any significant effects on the base games, it is usually just some extra dialogues here and there. And what would be about Godwyn's "virus" growing in Stormveil, as well as on some enemies and deathroots in the ruins where Mariners resided? What is considered his body goes FAR beyond just Deeproot Depths, should they have programmed removing of ALL that to not contradict their own lore, then? It really doesn't feel like the case even from technical standpoint already!

From narrative standpoint, both Godwyn and Radahn should (have) stay(ed) dead for the story and emotional weight, however, elaborating Radahn didn't make his presence overbearing for Fromsoft's standards! On the contrary, he got more role besides kinda 'just being there' compared to other Demigods! Godwyn had a lot of impact and presence all over the story in the base game and one of the endings being tied to him! I will get to it in the paragraph about devs allegedly 'abandoning' some things that needed elaboration though!

Yet even then, devs still added Godwyn bits with Knights of Death getting sort of rebranding to still stand by him in death and the bit about Godwyn having custom-made medallions for his special knights! It is very clear that devs have not forgotten or forsaken Godwyn but instead keep reminding us how much he mattered for the idiots living in this fictional universe! However, they know where to stop so the character isn't devouring the story too much as they have their own style with balancing characters' presence! Saying that "only" adding Knights of Death going to protect what's left of their Lord like sort of fucked up plant culture in Shadow Realm is some sort of grave insult to his fans is just weird, because in fact devs were not supposed to add this EITHER!

6) "Scadutree fragments is a cheap way to force players to explore the map"

I don't think there is anything wrong about rewarding the players for exploring the open world map that is meant to be explored! And, yes, it is rewarding, not forcing! The bosses COULD be beat even without Scadutree fragments if you know what you are doing! Like, what surprises me the most is that this take typically comes from the gamers! You know, THE people who would know a thing or two about imbalanced builds or weapons, or have enough time and patience to memorise every single movement by the boss, let alone liking to challenge themselves!

Even then, Scadutree Fragments are supposed to be discovered naturally as you walk around, check niche places on the map, do platforming and search for optional enemies and bosses! If all you wanted from this DLC was to run very straightforward to just beat the boss already with ease so you check the remembrances faster, are you sure that you actually like PLAYING this game? Getting into an open world game when you don't want the 'open world' aspect seems counter-productive to me :/

Bonus mention: some people finding Abyssal Woods sequence frustrating and annoying! It is somewhat relevant to this complaint! Losing Torrent in this area perfectly adds to the sense of not being able to escape, and stealth game with Aging Untoucheable is straight up horror stuff! How are you supposed to experience getting into the forbidden area infested by the force that every living (and dead!) being in the setting fears, if you just can run straightforward to the boss willy-nilly without any buildup or obstacle! It feels like the same sort of complaint as Malenia being unfair boss when she should be hard as someone who "never knew defeat"! Fromsoft is very good at using gameplay elements to confirm what the lore says! This "criticism" just looks like straight up impatience to get your dopamine injection already instead of enjoying the process of learning this story like devs intended!

7) "Miquella has always been evil"

I suppose it goes as a sibling paragraph to 'Miquella's character was assassinated', except this time from the standpoint of those who either liked the "twist" or were indifferent to it… I think this is just a confirmation bias at play from the people who assumed this about the character from the start, often including but not limited to Berserk fanboys. I agree that the fact he has never been perfect was plain to see either, with Bewitching Branches being a sinister power as a concept and Haligtree Soldiers suicide-bombing being a bit too fanatical, but yet again: nothing erases the notion that he had good intentions!

Ansbach kind of reminds me of the same effect Kenneth once had; Kenneth described Godrick as pathetic and everyone agreed completely ignoring the bits that suggested otherwise, and now Ansbach described Miquella as a monster and this is what some people believe! Honestly, how do I develop this level of charisma to make people believe me uncritically fhfdhhfsd In any case, the "unreliable narrator" effect is very prominent in the game, and it is important to remember that developers make the character say what the character would, not give us the directions on what opinion to have!

Miquella's power is further elaborated upon in SoTE, as not inherently brainwashing one but a very strong remedy for someone's problems! Leda's fanatical murderous fixation, Hornsent's obsession with revenge, Moore's insecurities and Ansbach's fixation on avenging Mohg's "honor" (which is likewise a very questionable concept lol) all were muted, giving them peace and friendship instead of attacking each other OR himself! The key to them being pacified and happier being to fix their love on someone else doesn't make Miquella evil megalomaniac wanting an army of loyal dolls.. on the contrary, often caring for someone else IS the feeling that brings out the best in us humans!

Again, this one is subjective, and of course people can read the character any way they want! But I start to take an issue with this reading when people claim that it is canon and dig at the base game saying how he never cared for the compassion but just was sort of narcissist seeking the oppressed to make an army of admirers from or whatever… The DLC accentuates on how he has been abandoning the 'humane' parts of himself, that were making him vulnerable and as Demigod more human than God, so we meet him at his "lowest". Even then, he states his motivation to make a better world full of compassion and free of evil! He would make everyone hold hands in more peaceful ways if he could, but even from the base game his arc was basically trying and failing to heal his sister. Besides, Dane's last and only words are asking him to make a gentler world, without his spell in the effect-

Like, there are enough things that show he had enough reasons to make people see him as symbol of hope even without MAKING them to. With Radahn, we are repeatedly told that "he and Malenia helped him to cosplay Godfrey" stems from the oath they shared and Radahn agreed to! Whether you see Caelid battle as him wanting to die (to go to Shadow Realm) in a battle, or him rebelling against Miquella's world of shining flowers and kissing bunnies in the end as a warmonger but twins not having this "change" it still doesn't straight up speak of evil intent. Could be taken as despair and reaching that 'giving up' state! With Mohg we are not sure either. Maybe Miquella just wanted to "heal" his pain but his personality persisted and obsession/kidnapping happened, so he knew he was beyond help and TOO soaked in blood and sin! Or he was beyond help / didn't want help from the start, so EVENTUALLY (key word) amounted only to sacrifice in Miquella's eyes on his path to Godhood as he NEEDED one, maybe it was even seen as 'mercy'. Help is to build a better world as a honor and all.

He very likely wanted to make a better world for him too! Both their goals were connected to "love" after all! The reading of the character as evil is not as cut in stone and evident as some people make it look like!

(In fact, shortly after BASE game released, Miyazaki confirmed that Martin wrote some nice characters and Miyazaki wrote the ways to corrupt them. So, Martin wrote the kind guy, and Miyazaki put him through corruption arc. But I will get to it in due time -_-.....)

8) *views Messmer as just another (boring?) victim of Marika* (and variations)

This one I kind of saw in two forms: people who dislike the character or not care about him writing him down as "boring" for this one, and simps who kind of lift agency off the character in order to be able to like him! This is to put it roughly, as again, there are various variations but with the same sentiment at its core!

I do think that Marika having enough influence over his actions, and even having abused him emotionally in some way, is entirely palatable interpretation! The nature of Base Serpent, as well as supposed connection with the Fell God, is debatable and can vary from truly harmful thing to simply a force of nature that exists to ensure forces like Erdtree can't live forever. Regardless of interpretation, would a kind, loving mother truly allow for her child to hate himself so much?

Marika has….. a problem with fire. Waging war to put down the Flame of Ruin because it could burn the Erdtree and removing Destined Death that was fire-affiliated power already showed it; as 'Eternal', she of course wanted to live forever, same for her Erdtree! Messmer manifesting fire element would certainly be a problem for her, but was it though? Base Serpent is malicious but for this reason Winged Serpent exists, no? Can another side of universal balance be something that must be removed from the scheme of things? Can fire, or death, truly count as 'evil' things? Are not they simply forces of nature that Marika being the MILF Gwyn that she is did not desire personally, in her vision of a brighter, bountiful world?

My point is, even though she created many Divine Blessings to help him, she did likely inflict some sort of negative self-image on him anyways. Maybe it was not her intention, but she always feared him and eventually that brought her to hide him away!

So like, how does this NOT make Messmer just a victim? Okay, so here is the error that kind of started it all:

User drenched-in-sunlight explained it better in this ( x ) post, but the point is that taking up the Crusade that Marika wanted was Messmer's own initiative and not something she forced him to do like English localisation made it sound! So, she was still possessed with the wish for revenge, but Messmer was like 'hey no need to make your hands dirty, I can do it'! Like drenched-in-sunlight explained, Marika's 'wish' here is the same as in the description of her braid (same symbols), so Messmer sees what is hurting her, and ASKS to be the tool of her vengeance! I'd say that even without this bit, simply the fact that he is a grown ass man should give him agency and hold him up to proper judgement, but nuance is always important!

This does paint an interesting picture though: Marika has been trying to "heal" him (which is a debatable concept considering her character and what fire, save for Frenzied Flame, means in the setting, but I don't insist), he asked to deliver her vengeance FOR her, but also despite having sealed the Base Serpent within him she was still scared of him and sealed him away making everything connected with him heretical and warriors standing by him still shunned, and Messmer lived in hatred, begging her forgiveness before crashing her seal yet cursing her name upon his death! It looks to me as though she grew truly scared of him and decided she wanted him gone BECAUSE of seeing him in action during crusade! Him hating her for ditching him implies that was not something he expected, so maybe seeing him in Crusade made her go 'wow, my son is actually more scary than I thought'!

That speaks of Messmer as someone who can get carried away with cruelty in blind, fanatical devotion! (that also makes Queelign an interesting mirror into his youthful, more """innocent""" self but that's not the point fdhfhds) Marika might have been horrified by it, or horrified by her own ugly reflection in the monster she (unintentionally) created with her parenting, but nonetheless it describes Messmer's personality more. Someone whose reaction to his mother's trauma and yearning for vengeance was to not only take such terrible plan in his arms, but also to go too far with it, maybe even too far for HER. Not everyone would react the same way. A better person would've probably focus on helping his mother to heal and move on, or maybe even turn around and refuse to comply with such harmful intentions. But he, being a grown man who could think and choose, chose to commit genocide. He is evil! He is not JUST evil, either. He is NOT boring tool of Marika with no agency, though!

And on a relevant note, for the simps..

No but seriously fdhfhdfds I understand how that sentiment could have left a sour taste after SA Mohg truthers kept saying 'hey guys you aren't real fan of Mohg if you ignore what he did 🙄' (that certainly aged…….), but I still want to remind that a fictional character doesn't need to be stripped out of his agency to be found attractive! With Messmer what he is doing is a bit more direct, and it is NORMAL to simp for the characters you could not stand in real life! What is the fun of engaging in fictional worlds if you turn it into a morality contest and sort of a "practice" for what kind of endeavours and relationships you'd want in real life? It is for going wild and satisfying curiosity and dark impulses. No limits needed. This is just an advice if anyone needed one like this, because we just never know really.

9) *"corrects" people's interpretations (especially of Nanaya)*

Sigh...

This kind of behavior in the fandom is certainly not exclusive for the past-DLC era, but it really felt more relevant to address again and- yes, like I said, with Nanaya thing it is something I've witnessed the most! Not long ago I said that despite hearing people question why there are so many uncharitable takes on Nanaya I haven't really seen any? But yes, like usual, it happened because Tumblr bubble is often different and you need to catch updates from Reddit and Twitter to have full fandom picture! An example: not reposting the art of course, but here is a cute comic of Midra reuniting with Nanaya in spirit after death ( x ). And do you know why the artist had to add a caption to ask people to not correct their headcanons? …..because on Twitter, they got pestered with people "correcting" them that Nanaya was aKtUaly evil / Shabriri / etc. 🤡🤡🤡

Honestly, I approve of correcting people when they legitimately, objectively contradicted or missed something stated in canon! I disagree with the notion that canon is just a suggestion and the whole fun is to just use names and concepts from it to create one's own thing! I am one of the guys that wears the T-Shirt that says "Just make an OC then" because primarily fandoms are about studying and enjoying the source material! A good headcanon knowingly differs from canon, know rules to break them at the right places, all that. It is especially relevant in Fromsoft's games because the information in them is very scattered and obscured. You WILL miss something, and so communicating with the fans, double-checking wikis etc is crucial! Similarly with fanart: there is a difference between giving a character heterochromia and more interesting look to add flavor in design and drawing them incorrectly because you haven't SEEN their datamined face and need a pointer (looking at you, white Henryk Bloodborne fanarts all because not everyone checked datamined faces!)!

As I got this off my chest that I am not an absolutist with the 'let fans do what they want' because if someone doesn't need canon that much they can always make OCs or original settings…. …when something is not canon but simply a popular interpretation, don't "correct" people! Midra asks Nanaya to forgive him when he succumbs, and it is anyone's own choice whether they take it as her never having wanted him to succumb when she was still alive or her having been secretly lyinh and ensuring long endurance would made him explode into more "sufficient result"! Fromsoft's lore often leaves bits of information that can be used to justify any interpretation! And discussions, even debates, to prove why your version is better are very interesting! Fromsoft's lore community at its best feels like we are all academics defending our thesis before the audience! But the whole "well aktualy" + "there is no proof so your headcanon is bad" + "let me educate you media illiterate casual" + "but [popular loretuber] said this" attitude just isn't it.

The last example is important! This problem IS also often the result of latching onto what a popular loredigger says. Usually Vaatividya (video lore), charredthermos (wrote a popular Bloodborne interpretation document), Lokey's Lore (has whole website with his interpretation of Fromsoft games bits) and so. And I often see people hate these popular Youtubers too, but I think that the blame lays on the crowd! It is none of these guys' fault that the crowd decided to promote them to the fandom's idols and give them this sort of influence! They were not loredigging to gain this kind of power, they probably never expected the popularity, and they would sure be unhappy to know that their work is used to shun creativity and start fights in the community that they care about! Yes, even when they 'lokey' (haha geddit?) speak in the manner that suggests being close-minded to other interpretations, they are not forcing and CAN'T force fans to idolize them.

In the end, they were just doing what they loved, and popularity probably came from them being pioneers. But instead of spilling vitriol towards them and saying how they should be "dethroned" as if they damage the fandom, why not turn our anger towards THE people who idealize them? We are all angry when we are "corrected" and they use lore of someone popular as a "proof", but this is the fault of THE people who "correct". Discourage this behavior, encourage thinking like individuals and not like sheep. No one asked for the popularity or the power to stomp out any curiousity and creativity. Don't hate the big guy AND don't take the big guy's word as a gospel. In the end, we are all just guys looking for answers in the places where they were NOT given.

10) "Mohg beating allegations made the story worse"

Sibling paragraph to 'they've failed the fans by not making it a thing from my wishlist'. Themes of sexual abuse and incest ARE quite interesting and important, but not inherently THE most important, or more important than any other themes! The information about Miquella having put Mohg under spell opens up equally interesting things to talk about and look for! How did he end up like this? Was it an accident of him trying to "heal" Mohg and it no working, and then he decided to just use what he had when he followed his plan? Had he written Mohg down as only working as vessel sacrifice for that mad plan from the start? What was the backstory between Miquella and Mohg considering this? There are still interesting things to work with, regarding relationship of the two, but now with added spin of Miquella's fall from grace arc that starts with following the plan with Radahn. Because, I remind you, requirement for a vessel, so, someone powerful dying and being used, was part of it from the start! Since Radahn needed to die! It is dark, just in a different way, and divided between two characters instead of just clear stated victim and abuser without shades of grey or nuance!

I say 'divided between two characters' instead of 'they've switched' because Mohg didn't instantly become a GOOD person over this reveal! I praised him as a valid character to point out that not all victims of awful childhood and mistreatment are automatically good people, which is a good way to diversify the characters! Make things more realistic than black and white thinking. Similarly how Rykard or Dung Eater are evidence that not all people up against the oppressive system are automatically good people. That benefit of Mohg as a character didn't evaporate, he still serves that point well enough! Nothing in the DLC said that all the kidnapping of surgeons, corrupting people with the blood and bringing in sacrifices happened because of Miquella's charm. Ansbach, in fact, confirms that the blood cult madness existed before Miquella's charm! When we admit to him that we killed Mohg, he also states that such were understandable risks of seeking Lordship, implying that Mohgwyn Dynasty, so, attempt to insert himself into Golden Lineage through mad, violent means, was also already a plan before! To think of it, SA accusation is the one and only thing he beat x) Reminds me of this meme: ( x )

Again, the story allegedly becoming "worse" solely boils down to 'they've made it about a starter point in Miquella's descent from grace and not about sexual abuse' that is simply not true. It is still interesting and valid story, just in a different way! I would normally argue that as far as fandom life goes, it should have in fact improved things; whereas Mohg was never addressed and explored as a character beyond "mohglester" thing, now he should get proper respect and analysis by the fandom, right? …right? WRONG, now people do often simplify him in a different way and forget that he DID do all that other bad shit! 🤦🏻‍♂️

And I can imagine that complaint about this reveal is not limited to but INCLUDES fans being annoyed by how people simplify Mohg and make him a good guy now! But fandom's habit of selectively reducing characters to just one trait ("mohglester" before, "victim of brainwashing" now) is not the fault of writers. How exactly the fact that we, as a community, are too shallow and unprepared for complex story and characters Fromsoft offers to us, is the fault of Fromsoft? Creator should not simplify their writing or direct it a certain way just because of the notion that majority will lack attention span or insight to understand it! We are the ones who should do better! Mohg offered enough complexity in SA allegations era, he still offers enough complexity now, it is right there in the source material for those who seek and care!

11) "Why some people are still coping instead of admitting the writing is bad???"

Yeah very mature of me to single out this paragraph by making the headline sound like the speaker is having a fit, I know. 🙄 In my defence, this particular one also truly got on my nerves, but it lacks the same huge gravity as the topic of approving of Hornsent genocide did so it is just… it is certainly something right.

Certain kind of fans that I lovingly call 'Twins Cultists' (as opposing camp to 'Chadahn Simps') has been terrorizing the fandom with the attitude of singling out and shaming other fans for "wrong" interpretations, saying how they "disrespected story and characters" with the awful sin of not reading characters Malenia and Miquella deeply enough while at the same time reducing Godrick and Mohg to a bad punchline and insulting fans that read deep into THEM, trashing everyone outside of their echo chamber, putting characters/ships malicious ragebait takes in the TAGS and then playing victims of the "toxic community" and such and such. And you would expect this kind of behavior to get significantly humbled up and them to self-reflect on how they were treating fans when THEIR takes were disproven? And I am glad that some people DID!

Full respect to the guys who reconsidered the attitude of swinging their One True Reading at the heads of "heretical" fans like a bat now knowing Fromsoft always has some cards up their sleeves! Especially if they apologised to the fans they were rude to! But also enough people didn't and now not only hate differing fans harder, but also are furious that writers sorta took away their privilege to be mean to "media illiterate weirdos". I wish I had the patience to accept the fact that of course people are angry, because something so important for them was……. no, fuck that lol I don't.

Okay jokes aside, yes I am aware that it is not possible to care about something passionately without at least somewhat slipping into the territory of defending your understanding from "threats". All we can really do is to draw the line between getting too carried away by our passion and outright obnoxious toxicity in the fandom and TRY to not cross it. To CHOOSE to not cross it when we see it, and step back if we did cross it. I do, however, take an issue with people who refuse to try and even encourages the mentality of seeing fellow fans as "enemies" and gets proud knowing they angered someone or discouraged them to check the tag. In Fromsoft fandoms, it is almost exclusively Tumblr behavior, we are sure luckier than every other fandom in the internets, but I still want to get it off my chest. Like I said, this particular attitude developed a new form after SoTE released, attacking the fans who seek reasoning within the writing decisions they deemed badly written or fundamentally wrong.

And these instances are EXACTLY where I put "just caring passionately" as their motivation into question. Because if someone says it makes sense to say that Miquella and Malenia admired Radahn's kindness when they all were younger and thus he likely faced a negative character arc since then into becoming obsessed with war instead, and you get mad at them for "coping when calling a warmonger kind is dumb and makes no sense"…? Sorry, but who cares about characters MORE in this situation: the person offering proper thought about them given some new information, or the person who is mad that their one-dimensional vision got broken?

People finding creative, interesting and reasonable ways to incorporate new information into lore, in the ways that do not contradict the base game (!!!) is not "coping" or "seeing through pink glasses" or "refusing to admit their fav dev can do wrong" or whatever you choose to call it. It is simply using analysis and imagination, it is adapting and accepting. If you can't do it, you are welcomed to do rewrites of SoTE reveals and characters and ending, it is not illegal! But don't go and say that the writing is so awful and broken that everyone who accepts it "never actually loved Elden Ring" or other nonsense just because for YOU this writing didn't work! The one and only unforgivable thing the devs did starts and ends at the fact that Radahn thing was not foreshadowed, and yet even HERE his relevance is EASILY incorporated and developed into backstory if you are willing to put in effort! This retcon is such a nothing thing compared to what some other writers do glares at Ladybug retcons for comparison. Like, working with it is possible, and if you don't want to it doesn't mean others shouldn't.

And in fact, at first I saw a lot of enthusiasm regarding the rewrites, AUs, "fixes", dwelling on pre-existing lore ignoring SoTE and all that. I really did, and it was valid. But then what I saw, personally, was that flame dying down and amount of such posts shortening but out of those who left this brand of toxicity followed! My interpretation of this change is that when initial shock and frustration waned, more people started to notice SoTE was not bad.. and THAT made people who continued hating SoTE feel less validated, in a way. When people started to warm up to certain plot twists and decisions, to elaborate new information into their vision of the lore… people that still hated and disapproved of the thing lost the image of being "the saviors of the fandom from Miyazaki's garbage writing" and became simply people who do their own thing. And for people who are driven with negative impulses, 'just enjoying the things they like' is usually not enough. They need to be "right", they need to "contribute to the fandom", they need to be "better" and so on. It is a known thing about fandoms even aside of SoTE and Soulsborne fandoms altogether, and I feel like this situation is the return of it, personally.

Of course, this is all speculation and the dynamic I've observed. Maybe someone observed different processes entirely! I just think it is safe to assume as I've seen absurd level of toxicity even despite staying away from 'active' fandom (no 'cool kids' circles, no following popular creators, no open Discord servers, no checking tag or Reddittube etc)!

Still, "I'll fix awful creators' writing because I actually love and respect the characters unlike they" is already a very questionable sentiment, but to attack the fellow fans over this is beyond any patience and understanding! Eventually there is no "right" or "wrong" way to love the characters and story and to be passionate, even if we are naturally inclined to believe in our own vision the most! Perhaps you express your love by putting in a lot of effort to give the characters different writing entirely, to "save" them from decisions of creators you don't agree with. But it is an OPTION, not the One True Way, and… really, it is strange to be mad at people for being happy and satisfied with the story and finding a lot of valid things in it and call them blinded Fromsoft dickriders incapable of critical thinking or whatever! Bonus points when such sentiments come from EXACT same people who resent the Youtube bros that bash every other new TV series AND insult people who dared to enjoy such aaaaawful product or whatever… You guys really hate the type of YouTube "critics" who take personal insult in people who enjoyed a thing and even reasonably justified the parts that THEY declared disgrace to the series and disrespect to true fans? Yeah most reasonable people hate them. We all know at least one modern TV show whose fans got this sort of treatment. But don't you guys see how you've became exactly the same type of "critic" at this rate? Unacceptable behaviour, not justified by 'but it comes from place of passion'! I am passionate about Soulsborne as you could tell and I disapprove of it, no correlation!

12) "Fromsoft became woke" (and variations)

For startes, I have to wonder whether we've been playing the same games all along. Where was it when Gwyndolin was intersexual and affirmed himself as a trans man later? Seath is also blind and has what is a disability for his species? Where was it when Pharis/Evlana was a very GNC woman in Japanese original, but for you she looked a trans woman because English localisation made Pharis a he/him a removed Pharis' nametag from "female archer" in the woods? Where was it when our good friend intersexual trans man was literally killed by the church? Where was it when they had female doctors, church leaders and scholars in Victorian era? As well as strong female hunters like Maria or Gratia? Gratia and Rom are also confirmed intellectual disability rep via Japanese script? Or when both male OR female hunter could propose to Annalise? Or positive sex worker representation in Arianna being the only kind person to step in Oedon Chapel? Where was it in the BASE Elden Ring with Ranni being bisexual, Malenia representing severe physical and mental illness, Miquella being GNC at least and trans+neurodivergent-coded at most, Dolores being a return of GNC woman, Blind Swordsman, Niall being another prosthetic-using fighter and Marika/Radagon? Speaking of blindness there were also Maiden in Black, Firekeeper, Irina 1, Irina 2 and Hyetta? Where was it when through their whole games they never sexualized their female characters and the ONE exception in Gwynevere was not even on purpose? WHERE WAS IT WHEN TRANS COFFIN???

...okay, I can continue and I'd love to be reminded of more examples. But on the serious note, this complaint has two ways to go about it: 1) an understandable fatigue with writers and stories placing pseudofeminist agenda on bland unsympathetic female characters, retconning pre-established characters to pretend to care for diversity and generally hating the audience for merely being born cis/white/male and 2) people being upset at diversity in the cast to begin with and complaining about "forcing the politics in art". And in both cases, this just doesn't apply to Fromsoft.

In the first case, they simply aren't hating their "privileged demographics" audience through characters and narrative, and doesn't seem like they will. They write very compelling, nuanced and even sympathetic characters, as well as the stories that make you ask questions to yourself! They insist on messages against corruption of religious institutions and fascism, but even THEN they'll give sympathetic characters on that side (!), show that not all people who oppose them are good either (!!) and make damn sure to recognise at the start of it all were good intentions (!!!!!!). From this angle, you could argue they are not woke ENOUGH, actually, because of how merciful, open-minded and non-forceful their messages are! They deliver their points through characters who are actual people, rather than writing characters as bland plot devices that hate you!

In the second case... Yeah, as memey as the phrase is, but "they've always been woke". Just because Miyazaki loves motherly woman archetype and and Fromsoft games always had compelling married hetero couples doesn't mean they are your allies in "preserving traditional values"! Again, messages against religious corruption and preserving long-overdue order of things fearing change are plain. Elden Ring had a slight increase in diversity, but to think of it, Elden Ring is also a bigger game with bigger cast. I do want to point out though that the very concept of worrying that with more diverse characters somehow cis and white cast will no longer be a part of From's stories is strange. They'll never make it all about JUST one demographic because they cover nature of humanity in general, but if anything, adding way more angles than their staple Medieval Europe culture route gives them more power for TYPE of the messages they want to tell! Because their power is, and always been, showing the situation from different perspectives.

13) COMMERCIAL BREAK LOL

14) "Devs artificially increased difficulty instead of WORKING to make battles"

This is very unfair criticism already from the very concept! Players had two years to advance through the base game, and if you play consistently, it is enough time to become ridiculously overleleved! Overleveled to the point of not being able to enjoy playing SoTE at all, as all enemies would drop dead instantly! It was easy to sabotage the challenge and simply not let the devs give us the fun experience they intended. But, no! Devs cared to make things so that even if you are 300+ level and have godly build, you'll be down in two hits by the first Furnace Golem, let alone bosses! So, yes, you either need to run around and collect Scadutree Fragments, or seriously study your boss and come up with clever strategy! I am still proud of a really smart way to fight Rellana I invented x)

This complaint did have a period of initial shock when it was really blown out of proportion due to the comfort zone of being overpowered broken, but this opinion still lingers and I just find it strange! Why NOT make sure that players of any level physically can't be too strong to actually PLAY SoTE, instead of just running through it with ease? Even then, how comes they "didn't work on bosses"? Boss battles like Messmer, Bayle and Midra are absolutely wonderfully well done on every level! Romina, Rellana and Putrescent Knight are really great and have super interesting battles even if not as epic and show-stopping, aesthetic and moves alone are immaculate. Non-remembrance bosses who are also very fun and beautifully designed! There are annoying bits about Scadutree Avatar and Gaius, but you can't seriously say they did not WORK on them! The bosses are challenging not only due to artificial difficulty, because even at high Scadutree Fragments level you still need to give them thought! And while you do… right, you can admire the sound and the battle design!

I am just really confused about this complaint because it could only be applied to reusing Radahn for the final boss.. but even then he is not fully reused, and sure not so reused for Stage 2 where you can't see shit because of Miquella's spells. One "kinda mid" boss can't and should not eclipse all those awesome bosses! If anything, he feels more like a hard to get joke! Fans have been saying things like 'oh if only we could fight Vendrick at his prime', 'oh if only we could fight Gehrman at his prime' etc etc… now, as they ALSO did want to fight Radahn at his prime, they got an option to do so, and he is not all that impressive, right? :p Let's be real he only sucks because Leonard isn't here hgfhhhgb

15) *admiring how fanatical Leda is while hating other (male) characters with the same quirk*

Sigh... I will just leave this meme by the user wraith-caller here: ( x )

Yes, fandom does have decent amount of simps for this type of male character, I know. Lautrec, Alfred, and D twins. (Coincidentally, all women-killers x) Even if Devin is actually justified) I suppose Queelign would go here too if people didn't write him down as a joke character by proxy over a cursed cleric haircut? 🤔 skill issue btw So of course it is not to say that they are not given enough love/lust/other positive interest…..

…but for some STRANGE reason, people who feverishly admire Leda and simp for her or at least hail her as such compelling character that ALSO hate Alfred or D for being such horrid fanatics are almost a staple by now! Why!!! This problem existed to a smaller extent with people who hated Alfred while simping for Adella and even shipping her with her victim- and no, it is cool and based, one does NOT get into a media with dark themes to demand healthy characters and healthy ships, but why so many times gender defines it? I don't care if you are a lesbian; whether you give character a justice should NOT depend on whether you are attracted to them, or else you are no different from straight girls that would like a male character and hate female character with the same issues! And sure I don't care if you are a feminist and are inclined to give "pay back" for years of misogyny in the fandoms by applying double standards!!

16) "Why could not we have JUST ONE genuinely nice character?"

Alllllright so… apparently, I was wrong this whole time about SoTE. I was convinced that it had no impact on the base game beyond like, Leda greeting us in Mohgwyn Palace, but I suppose I was misinformed very much? Because turns out that this whole time I was not aware that SoTE removed existence of Roderika, Hewg, Boc, Melina & Torrent, Latenna, Albus, Thops, Jar Bairn, Millicent and Enia from the base game!

….fine, okay, sarcasm is not my forte at all, but what I said still stands from both subjective and objective standpoint. Subjectively, I don't think counting out minor characters does any good for enjoying and analyzing the story! Should anything only "really" count when it is a significant, major character? This reminded me of that time when someone said it was 'incredibly fucked up how Bloodborne only had 2 non-white characters' when in reality it has 13 but minor characters supposedly didn't matter much…?

I want to specify though how this bit is more about how I interact with fictional worlds; I take them as just fictional realms that I enjoy exploring and "living through", I do not put much emphasis on how much 'weight' characters representing certain demographic OR worldview in the story as someone able to love every other minor gremlin genuinely! Maybe it is autism, maybe it is the fact that I am naturally hesitant to interact with the 'big guys' anyways with real people too. I enjoy tending to flowers and I suppose for most people the point or representation they want to see should be visible from every angle, like Erdtree x) With major characters, I think Rennala and Godwyn are the closest we have to good people, yet they were not able to be 100% good conceptually due to their high status.. much like Miquella himself, which brings me to a more objective point!

Conceptually, it is already impossible to be fully good when you as much as hold a lot of power! Some people have to be neglected if not straight up stomped out, for your own safety or safety of others, and it won't be a good thing *regardless *of intentions! Some sacrifices have to be made because if you are nice to everyone while having a lot of power, bad people will try to use you! Some social games, if not straight up violence, have to be applied if you want to make a change in the world! The big, important person can't be perfectly kind, because in that case they will no longer be big and important! It is just cruel truth about how society works! And Miquella HAD to be big and important. He had huge plans for the world, and as much as keeping himself and what tribe he has built within the Haligtree safe implied some morally questionable acts, let alone making his path through the position where he can change anything!

Pacifist character with unyielding principles who has a say in the fate of the world can often be portrayed from a very unpleasant angle, like, 'hug and forgive war criminals with unreal body count :3' angle (Steven Universe comes to mind first of all). Like, such decision make you wonder how this is being a GOOD guy here! But at the same time, is taking down those war criminals truly good either? When the character combines being the force of good AND being the force able to effect fate of the world, they inevitably are faced with the dilemma of either getting their hands dirty, thus sullying their grace at the very least, or making a decision that would feel like betrayal for the victims… which, again, sullies that grace but in another way. Miquella was already conceptually doomed to act Machiavellian by the virtue of being an Empyrean who wished change, much like Ranni except more subtly so!

And this is why true goodness could only come through the little guys. They don't have to make morally questionable decisions with no outcome that spares their innocence; their field of influence is to just care about their closest surrounding and to do their little tasks! They can't change the world, but they can change just the lives of their friends and their own.

Malenia, one of the key figures in the story, was faced with the choice to either "abandon her dignity" and nuke the continent to deliver Miquella's plan in full (the route she did end up doing), OR to preserve that "dignity" but thus hinder their plan that I remind you was against the Golden Order, to build a better world (which is also sort of morally questionable decision in the grand scheme of things)! She could not win and with all information we were given, more suffering in the setting would ensue no matter what! Do a drastic sacrifice for the greater good, or forsaken that greater good to preserve more lives but doom them to live in the same bad conditions forever was her picture! Yet Millicent, effectively a 'little guy' version of Malenia, had the privilege to die with her integrity intact without any big consequences for the world and great scheme of things! True good, certainly, can only exist in the smaller scale.

When it reaches the higher plane and higher decisions there is no way to remain 'unalloyed'. So, yes, we could NOT have 'just one genuinely nice character' out of people with huge power and importance. Not because Miyazaki allegedly hates hope and hates you! But because he is a writer that seems to understand such fundamental things and philosophical dilemmas from the track record of his games so far. ANY mature, insightful writer knows that the idea of someone 'important' forever being good might be a thing the audience wants, but not a genuine thing. "No matter how tender or exquisite a lie will remain a lie" and all.

17) *hating Radahn's inclusion because "dudebros got validated" and not over the story*

To be honest, this IS something I am also familiar with. I won't play the "unlike you snowflakes I don't care about online discourse uwu" persona because I SURE do! I used to dread Mariadeline ship because fans of it were easily the most toxic and unbearable type of Bloodborne fans, choosing to remain willfully ignorant about Gehrman's character actual lore, showing near-biphobia regarding Maria, having era of acting personally attacked when their ship was implied to be anything BUT cottagecore fluff dynamics without corners, playing victims of hate and "misogyny" when they themselves maliciously rage-baited fans that were just enjoying themselves, and doing that ableist 'no reading all this get a life' thing when shown where they were wrong! I had a period of really disliking Leda because she was an in-universe manifestation of aforementioned 'Twin Cultists' who act very similarly to common Mariadeline fans with spreading the "us CORRECT fans with MEDIA LITERACY who RESPECT story and characters vs them WEIRDOS" toxic mentality, with the whole joys of echo-chamber stuff, playing victims when they knew they were PROVOKING anger and feeling attacked when anyone dared to as much as to look at their favs as anything but perfect. I dealt with both and enjoy the ship now, and like Leda now. These are just two recent examples, but I faced a similar problem often, in previous fandoms as well. And I will be real here:

What helped me every time was to distance from the 'vocal' fandom, gather around a few friends to private chats and bounce around the ideas on our own. Without any outside influence, without deliberately skewing interpretation to "spite" anyone, without any motivation in it besides trying to look at things with clear gaze. The cure against the sour taste that bad fandom experiences have left is not to have the writers to "validate" you or to "spite" your opponents or whatever. The cure is ALSO not to completely abandon the ship/character/concept/etc giving up on it as if it was rotten and "not worth the stress". The cure is to hide away from this negative influence for a time being and build your own vision, that might have only like 3 other fans but be immune to everything! Us very few people here who like Mariadeline the different way keep FAR distance from its more 'common' fans, and we are pretty glad that we grew a Halightree in the contrary to their Erdtree x)

I do not really see why could not the same be done with Radahn as a character. In fact, it feels like there is an unspoken DEMAND for it. For 'reclaiming' him, even! My friend heraldofcrow made a post ( x ) about why Radahn is not 'Chadahn' at all but actually a sad character in his own right and just LOOK at the notes! Clearly, he does not have to remain a "mascot" of those dudebros and remain associated with the dumbest discourse you ever had to read!

I think the fandom really has lost the objective when prior the DLC you guys started to hope for certain outcomes based on the fandom experiences! People hoping for Miquella to be kind to make 'annoying Berserk fanboys' shut up, people hoping for Miquella to turn out evil to be vindicated after his annoying fans were toxic over "wrong" interpretations of him, people hoping for Mohg to be confirmed bewitched so everyone who called them media illiterate could eat their words, people hoping for the answer to Caelid battle to invalidate Malenia haters from Reddittube…… Like, how comes that we have forgotten that the first priority is to hear what the writer has to say and try to accept it as fans, or at least to have objective, reasonable wishes for the story rooted in our knowledge about writing and NOT in fandom discourse? It should not be a matter what group of fans gets validated or screwed over, it should be a matter of what it does to characters! It should not be important that now Malenia haters will NEVER shut up, but it SHOULD be important that we now have a better context for her moral failing and can work with it. She is not THEIR to trash on, she is YOURS to cherish as the girlfailure now with extra information!

There is a Russian saying: "Мышки кололись, плакали, но продолжали есть кактусы" (literally "(the) mice prickled themselves, cried, yet kept on eating the cacti"). It is a figure of speech describing someone who keeps stubbornly doing something that only brings them suffering without a reasonable purpose to it. This is exactly what those dudebros have been doing thinking about Malenia within the context of their fav and what they have been doing complaining about how hard it was fighting her when no one forced them to. But this is ALSO exactly what Malenia fans have been doing engaging in bad faith "debates" started by those guys and checking Reddittube knowing full well no good takes exist there!

If what you wish from it is effected not by your knowledge and tastes, but by your bias stemming from fandom experiences… really, distance from the fandom and heal. Characters are their own entities, not your tools to own other people in the fandom. It goes to both Reddittube AND Twitbr, to both people who started it and people who merely developed negativity as reaction. Fans are NOT part of the story and should never be, we are all just people observing it and reacting to it.

18) "They clearly gave Radahn spotlight because he was popular in (western) fanbase"

It is absurd to assume that Fromsoft would turn the planned story around because a lot of people on Reddit and their YouTube lore influencers declared 'Chadahn' their king. In fact, judging by the merch they're offering, Malenia is recognized as equally marketable if not MORE marketable! Besides, had they cared about Western fanbase's reception specifically (which IS where Radahn is loved), they would have likely avoided the potential backlash by that type of fans regarding making their fav LGBT+! With half-brother, no less. I've also heard a theory that they included Radahn as the very last moment solution, but I doubt that baking in Freyja into the story with her and Ansbach's questline, as well as creating Gaius, could've been something done in the last moment! I am not a game developer so correct me if anything, but it looks like a lot of work to do. Besides, there is not enough cut content in SoTE to suggest the plans were far different! And we all know that cut content always still lingers in the game's files with Fromsoft!

They can care about marketing- heck, using Vargram, an existing character with his own lore, to portray the "Tarnished" in promo materials because his set is more catchy than Knight/Tutorial set, for example! Or how replacing an option to murder Orphan of Kos as an infant with 'shadowy presence' because it felt too grim didn't undo the option to kill Arianna's infant and other celestial children, nor it undid how horrifying Fishing Hamlet was. They also obscured the fact that Annalise's baby got aborted, but not the fact that Queen Yharnam's baby was stolen while she has a bleeding wound where a big belly used to be. These are examples of making posters more eye-catching and dodging potential scandals about promoting abortion respectively, but nothing about nuking the plans for the story!

You know what sells even better than Radahn? Big boobs! Yet over and over they make their female characters have smaller chests, even Marika, and the ONE exception Miyazaki ever made, Gwynevere, was done because the guy who drew her concept was too happy! Heck, assuming that Miyazaki included Radahn because his coworker wrote a Miquella x Radahn fanfic he liked is more realistic assumption than him wanting to "sell better" jggfggfhgn In any case, my point is, they follow the vision they like and don't sacrifice integrity of the story!

(+On the relevant note, back then there was a scandal with press calling them "homophobic" for Mohg supposedly perpetuating a negative stereotype with incest/pedophilia accusation….. but while they debunked that impression, they've added consort thing with Radahn that falls for the exact same issues potential lol!!!! You know the only reason "Radahn is a groomer" takes don't exist is because people who care about Radahn aren't the discourse-starters of the fandom. They didn't escape certain side-eyeing even when they COULD and it is funny)

There is another thing I want to address though!

The screenshot is from this reveal trailer, and the excerpt is from Miyazaki's interview ( x ). I assume that this COULD be used as a reasoning behind thinking adding Radahn and final Miquella cutscene in the "last moment"; like 'you see, there was an ending where he 'reveals' (?) the Scadutree, but they cut it, and offered that unfinished clip of Miquella asking Radahn to come with him!' ..okay, sure, but you know what else was in that interview?

The confirmation that there would not be an extra ending for Elden Ring, of influence on the main game! Right off the bat, right after this trailer! Miquella "unveiling" the Shadow Realm or anything like that would have had consequences on the main game, certainly! They might have animated this prior because they wanted to add a new ending but then decided to not touch the main game under any circumstances but kept it for the cool trailer, or they animated it for the trailer from the start (like if Miquella is unveiling a new location for us, metanarratively)!

19) *refuses to use information and lore from the base game while looking at the DLC*

Yet AGAIN, "Free my man Mohg from SA allegations (he did do all that other shit though)". XD True, when it is not that people reduce (?) him to just a victim upon learning Miquella's Bewitching lore for the sentiment alone… it is then because they sort of forget. :clown: Ansbach's entire existence and what information we receive from him confirms that Mohg's scary bloody cult existed before Miquella's spell! It is up to anyone to interpret whether 'love' theme about his cult also existed before what Miquella did, or was, in fact, a side-effect, but kidnappings and sacrifices definitely were not caused by Miquella!

Another example off the top of my head is Maliketh and even Hoarax Loux / Godfrey basically evaporating from Marika's backstory, as though nothing ever existed besides her time at the Shaman village, Messmer and Fell God. And the latter one makes it especially odd, because base game hammered it down in every other Fire of the Giants' incantation that the motivation to put that fire down was because it was capable of burning the Erdtree and existed as anathema to it altogether, but now it got basically forgotten, as if all that ever existed about it was Messmer's presumed connection to it! I even got """corrected""" once when I stated that war with the Fire Giants happened to establish and protect the Erdtree, with something along the lines of 'we don't actually know what the motivation was but very likely to help with the curse that he caused on Messmer'! Also seeing the turning point of Marika's story in her becoming a God through Divine Gate, when in reality it was first her being chosen as an Empyrean by the Two Fingers! So, first someone now qualified to create the new order, and then actually creating it by entering the Divine Gate!

There were also Miquella things such as saying that he abandoned Malenia when she described his absence as "he will keep his promise", or saying that him forgetting Godwyn was a weird decision when the base game already suggested he failed and gave up with failed Eclipse and Golden Epitaph with words 'please die a true death'! To be honest, with Malenia one I myself fell for it at first, but… yeah, base game suggested he was going to return to her after/if his plan succeeded. Romina "creating" Scarlet Rot I also found to be often disconnected from (Outer) God of Rot existing 🤔

I suppose this could be justified because many people finished Elden Ring significant time prior the DLC, so many lore details got blurred and only general impressions of specific fixations stayed! It is just how memory works, and revisiting the source material from time to time is necessary! Even then, SoTE is so full of new information that it is easy to just completely fixate on it! I just think that it is important to remember that SoTE is still not just a whole game despite its absurd side and saturation with the new things, and things in it add into the base game! Not always like missing puzzle pieces but sometimes in a way that makes the puzzle itself bigger, but still. Gaius existing didn't replace Alabaster Lord that was Radahn's Gravity Magic teacher and Ogha, but he was also a "classmate"! Radahn being stated as an important sibling for Miquella and Malenia didn't replace Godwyn, but rather is added as someone also important! Hell, maybe he even became so close with them after Godwyn's assassination, but I'll get to the "it doesn't contradict stuff" in the meantime! Dryleafs and Needle Knights aren't supposed to make anyone forget about Loretta and the plan to find "proper" Haligtree Knights but never finding a master for such sword! They are just people who put faith into him after Erdtree started to die and his police force respectively! (Also no if I saw that Needle Knights are police then so have to you all, fuck you)

20) "How could they abandon [insert a thing that had enough place in the base game]?"

This kind of happens frequently, and usually it is about Godwyn! Sibling paragraph to 'it obviously should have been Godwyn' I suppose! Godwyn is not the first character who is very significant for the story yet everything happened behind the scenes, through descriptions and dialogues of other characters. In fact, meeting him in "person" is already a luxury by Fromsoft's standards! He had enough of spotlight already with his death triggering the VERY events of the plot with Shattering, one of Miquella's failed plans being about 'Eclipse' to bring him back, being grieved for by other characters, making peace with Ancient Dragons and thus a whole type of incantations in the game being linked to him, haunting the environment via Deathblight and being core figure in the questlines of Ranni, Fia and Rogier who are pretty significant characters all! He had enough development and presence in the narrative, I'd say to the point where bringing him into SoTE would overload the story with his presence! Not making him a core figure in the DLC and limiting new information about him to his most significant Knights rebranding into Knights of Death to protect the places where Prince of Death "grows", again, not some grave insult to his fans because what was there to tell about him happened in the base game!

With Fromsoft characters, THE tragic culmination of their story often happens behind the scenes and we are intended to meet the character at their lowest point, or just dead! With Godwyn, that culmination did happen behind the scenes, with such beloved, important, enigmatic figure getting assassinated and sending Marika over the edge, and we have a second emotional culmination for the character that we get to experience where we DO meet him at his lowest - an abomination on all living and mockery of former self, knowing Miquella did not get the wish to either return his soul OR let him die a true death! He did not have enough screen time, but he had enough presence in the story and feelings!

A similar complaint could be made regarding 'Well, Miyazaki said that Miquella would be a focus of the DLC, but we only meet Miquella in the end and he just sits on Radahn's back instead of at least fighting us himself'! (no not me making up a guy, it was an actual claim towards Miyazaki allegedly "lying") First, you people take it BACK about a very clever Dark Souls 3 reference and Miquella's spells not letting me see shit. Second, like I said, his presence is all over the narrative! All core NPCs talk about him, we follow his traces and find flowers growing from his blood, we learn more about him and his past, Radahn's story is now connected to his and Mohg's story with him given some insight, Trina is inseparable part of him, Dryleafs and Needle Knights are HIS covenants, we see effects with and without his spell… How is all this NOT 'being focused on the character'? Fromsoft's style of giving character time and space is not specifically to show them on screen or let us battle them or have dialogue with them!

Personally, I also at first wrongly assumed that they forsaken Miquella and Malenia's connection for the sake of Radahn, but this is, again, the case of one not excluding another! His connection had enough weight in the base game: he started Fundamentalism with Radagon primarily as a sort of magic to heal Malenia and abandoned it when it was not working, she always identified as 'Blade of Miquella' and it is the only thing she holds onto as she is falling apart, her clothes, prosthetics and armor pieces are made of his Unalloyed Gold and it even digs into her very body, all which he created for her, Ephael is full of statues depicting their younger selves holding each other, she was the one to have his needle (different from the gold needle) and she awaited him to keep his promise since he was "the most fearsome Empyrean"!

(Cut Rico's dialogue in the base game's files ( x ) ( x )) The original intention seemed to give Trina less of a 'personality', making her more inseparable entity from Miquella or even straight up just his disguise like with cut Merchants' questline, so the plan to ascend Miquella to Godhood was already in the plans! They have changed the dream realm thing since, recontextualizing Miquella going to sleep to ascend into presumed dream realm into Godhood with dream Trina persona to Miquella departing into the realm where rather all dead drift to, but the POINT of him leaving for that mad plan rather than mysteriously vanishing and Malenia not knowing why was there from the start! Writers didn't just "randomly made him abandon her" - he ALREADY did so in the very early draft of the story!

In the interview ( x ) about SoTE, Miyazaki also confirmed how many things that were planned from the start were cut from the base game's story because it was getting too big:

Miquella also abandoned not just her but everything, and Radahn logically got special treatment because he was part of the plan from the start! Miquella, who left every feeling that made him the person that he was, did not need to love Radahn or care for him to remember that a God requires 'consort' (in this setting's lore). It is not outlandish to assume that he wanted Radahn to share that fate (a fate so bad that Trina begged us to rather kill him that allow it, mind you!) and not Malenia because she already suffered enough for him in his eyes, for example. She depended on him for everything, so why not ask the other tough guy rather than a person that never knew independency and true agency outside of his influence?

My hot take is that not asking her to hold his hand through horrifying ordeal further proved him caring about her with all the context! He maybe ideally would not have asked Radahn either but if you need the Second Guy as a God, who will you rather ask: a person that already never knew life besides self-identifying as your tool or a kind tough guy who was the second most reliable figure for you BOTH after Godwyn? And would Godwyn be interested in the idea to abolish the Golden Order anyway? Radahn presumably changed his mind later in life, but Godwyn was THE Golden Order guy since the start! But my interpretation is not so relevant, it is subjective and again saying 'there is no glaring problem that people think there is, it comes down to interpretation'. There was still nothing else to add about how Malenia and Miquella were connected in SoTE, it was already all said in the base game!

I might be talking from the standpoint of someone who very much used to the way Fromsoft reveals information; they are very minimalist and precise, they give as much of it as needed to understand the gist, and bringing up something not in one description of an easily missed item but several times across unskippable lore is generous for them! They said enough in the base game for everyone to get the point and decided to not milk the same thing in SoTE, nor they erased or contradicted the information from the base game!

Wanting more information for the sake of it is valid and natural for fans, but Fromsoft doesn't give it just for the sake of it! They didn't abandon these topics, they simply finished talking about them! Even so, Godwyn got now got confirmed to have his version of Cleanrots/Redmines, and Romina offered a fantastic narrative parallel with Malenia as someone unable to bring Scarlet Rot to blooming from the buds state yet cherishing it, when Malenia wanted nothing more but to get rid of Scarlet Rot yet it kept getting through no matter what! They added some extras without exhausting the point itself!

21) "Sote was a mistake" (and variations)

YOU take that BACK about Thiollier and Ansbach. You take that back about Leda and her potential of interacting with Loretta, about Freyja, about insight on how Tanith looked like before marrying Rykard, about Moongrum having a twin sister- heck, about RENNALA having a super cool badass sister! You take that back about Midra and Nanaya and the whole cool Abyssal Woods location, about cool Midra's Manse lore and the best fucking boss battle and soundtrack ever. You take that back about Messmer and the Fire Knights. You take that back about cool battle mechanics additions with many two-handed arms, hand/legs combat mechanics and throwing weapons mechanics. You take that back about Romina and super cool insight on Scarlet Rot. You take that back about Ymir and super messed up cool cosmic eldrich stuff with cosmic fingers and Metyr being a return of Ebrietas archetype no one could expect. You take that back about how everyone finally pays more attention to the Fell God and worldbuilding in general. You take that back about immaculate aesthetic and captivating lore of Hornsent. You take that back about meeting Trina. You take that back about how significant and important topics they managed to raise- no, honestly, how cool is that that they got us to discuss the topics of fascism and genocide, as well as cycle of revenge and dilemma of limiting free will vs accepting cruelty of the world so hard that we FORGET to simp for [choose Messmer or Rellana or both depends on you] during such passionate debates? You take that back about coolest fucking sets ever and ability to become a dragon. You take that back about Igon, Florissax, finally getting an explanation about why Dragon Communion was a thing if Golden Order made a pact with Ancient Dragons and BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYLEEEEEEEEEE! You take that back about Gaius- actually no screw that man, remove his battle lol

…sorry had to add that punchline.

My point still stands: you cannot objectively say that SoTE was a mistake. Subjectively, you can; if you were a fan that solely cared about Miquella only through a certain lense and nothing else, then sure, SoTE fucked your headcanons over and all the cool stuff won't make you shift your hyperfixation. For you, it would have been better if SoTE never existed, you would've been better off in previous state of things, endlessly debating Radahn's fans and bullying people with charitable Mohg interpretations and whatever. But people like this do NOT represent the fandom as a whole at all! Not even in relevance to the gaming-only part of it, I am talking about artists-writers part of it as well! Objectively, SoTE contributed a lot of interesting lore and characters without breaking pre-established lore; as I stated earlier, importance of Godwyn and Malenia did NOT get erased just because Radahn had a retcon to also be important person! SoTE answered some questions that required answers, like origins of the Formless Mother, Dragon Communion, Trina's nature, what happened with Mohg, what was the reason for Caelid and what were these darn weird crawling hands enemies!

No I am not rofling, I was seriously very confused about them and made at least three attempts to solve the mystery of their nature, but SoTE finally freed me from that torment!!

Adding more characters absolutely was not a mistake! None of these characters broke pre-established things, they are merely more 'dolls' to play with! Answering some questions was also not a mistake; whereas people might not like what the answers ARE, tying some loose ends of the story was a good call! It is not as if they've written elaborate document explaining every single bit of lore to the point no one can make interpretations or create new stories anymore! All they did was putting an end to some arguments, however new questions arose in their place; questions more interesting than who is "misogynist" and who is "media illiterate".

From the gameplay standpoint alone, I do not understand this claim either. How exactly SoTE would ruin base game, which is intact and still accessible map without changes? Shadow Realm's map exists separately from the base game, none of it breaks the main game's locations and bosses! I doubt that new mechanics and weapons from the SoTE completely ruin the main game and make it imbalanced either! For most of them, having a strong weapon doesn't automatically make you skilled and even base game's bosses could still kick your ass. And as for "imbalanced" ones, gamer bros of the fandom have been doing great so far self-regulating themselves to shame people who used Mimic Tear, Comet Azur, Blasphemous Blade etc 🙄 Their field of creating artificial "honor"-based difficulty and challenging themselves would not suffer because of the weapons from SoTE! They are able to make the challenges and PvPs what they want within themselves, encourage or prohibit anything. It is not as if Miyazaki is holding them at the gunpoint telling them to use mechanics introduced in SoTE that they believe "ruin" the playing process! Simply not use new weapons or not go in the Shadow Realm altogether if you don't want to - and Elden Ring will remain what it used to be for you!

I guess I can only agree with the notion that aside of SOME story loose ends, base Elden Ring was not lacking in anything. It was a very huge game, with many characters, many locations, many worldbuilding things to touch upon and discuss, many mechanics, very contained and packed with things for years ahead to dissect, discuss and create art and writing and videos for! SoTE just made it even bigger! We were mostly living fine without these characters and new information, save for the frustrating arguments I've mentioned!

Mohg fans against SA interpretations could disagree entirely because as SoTE aired they all said "the night, and the hunt, were long…" But, like I said before, fandom experiences should not define what we want from the story! Some questions remaining unanswered was bearable from the STORY standpoint, but it is objectively NICE that they did get answers! And… just adding more characters is definitely not a problem. Not characters that break the story, just MORE characters. There is a Russian saying, "Кашу маслом не испортишь" ("you can't ruin the porrige by adding more butter in it"), and it applies here very much. Unless some people, for example, hate Messmer and are frustrated that they have to remember about him when writing Marika's backstory or anything.. I would not get it either way because giving a character a couple of sentences of acknowledgement and tossing them away feels like the easiest thing to do in my eyes. Fandom is always doing it, they have always been doing it, so why NOW this is something so hard to do?

22) *blames Martin for all the parts of the story they hate*

As funny as the joke about Martin being responsible for the "incest ship" is, considering his track record, Miyazaki actually confirmed in the interview right after the first SoTE trailer that Martin did not have anything new to add to the DLC story! But then, just because he didn't turn in to add new lore for SoTE specifically, how could we tell that he didn't write these "plot twists" previously? For this, we need to dial back to when his contributions to the Elden Ring were discussed after base game's release!

(Start watching from 6:00 to 7:25)

“Elden Ring was going to take place in, let’s say the present of their game universe. But what they wanted me to write was what happened like 5,000 years before that,” he said. “So I went back and wrote a history of what happened 5,000 years before the current game, and who all the characters were and who was killing each other and what powers they had. They had these runes that were at the center of the game, and the rune got split into many pieces, and that’s what screwed up the world. I laid all that out.”

So, he wrote the base premise for the backstory - what happened and existed before the Shattering, and up until that point! So, how characters got corrupted, how their plans changed and what happened to them later etc was up to Miyazaki to create! Take the concept of the character - who, what power, what status - and put them through the arc and development! Not Martin wrote the events that unraveled after the Shattering AND unravel as we play the game! Miyazaki himself also confirms this, according to this ( x ) interview:

“So it was more up to us to interpret this and say, ‘how did they become such inhuman monsters? And how did the mad taint of the shattered shards of the Elden Ring and its power affect them?’ So that was our job to take these grand heroes and sort of misshape them and distort them into something they were not.”

"…if we get a chance to show Martin and if he gets a chance to see the game and see these characters, I think he might be a bit shocked. When he wrote them, he was really envisioning something a little bit more human, a little bit more traditional human drama and fantasy characters. So I hope he gets a kick out of that.”

I recommend reading the whole page, but this is the gist of it! So, not only what events we are following are Miyazaki's work, but also their fall from grace, their sins, their mistakes and everything you might hate ('you' mostly as in, people upset that Miquella was not as perfect and pure as you wanted) is ALLLLLL on him! YOU leave Martin OUT of this! we also all know he only writes hetero incest fsdhfdghsfdg

23) "SoTE contradicted the base game's lore [example that doesn't contradict it]"

This one is less focused than it may seem, because it is not just about Godwyn and Malenia! In fact, it is rarer about them as complaints about them mostly do the "they got abandoned" route that I've already ranted a lot about! god it feels so good to finally rant lol I've seen some instances of people JUST throwing the 'ohh my GoD this new info is SOOOOO contradictory to [thing]' and refusing to elaborate, pouting and playing victims of blinded fanboys when questioned, which is in itself very infuriating! Regardless of how you are frustrated with SoTE, how it screwed your expectations and preferences personally, you are a garbage critic if you just waste your emotions without any real argument to your point, there is no way to put it lightly! That being said, for this particular reason, it would be easier to address concrete examples that HAD some explaining behind them from the critical people! But, it NEEDED to be said!

Personally, I've stumbled into a couple of things, in which I managed to add my say! The first was a claim that the whole story of the base game was not supposed to happen because if Marika got driven by the impulse of revenge and despair, she was supposed to succumb to Frenzied Flame but she didn't! And this is NOT some groundbreaking discovery about how the story is allegedly fundamentally broken, but simply a huge overlooking of pre-existing information, if not confirmation bias! Frenzied Flame and Three Fingers are very interesting topic in general, that I've covered in a couple of lore posts already, but for the subject: whereas the sickness of Frenzied Flame, aka the 'become too sad and you will start to burn' illness, is the case in the Lands Between and started because of Shabriri's crime, the story of Marika and Midra's Manse logically happened before Shabriri! Abyssal Woods and Midra's Manse have the eyeballs that are evidence of being directly grasped by the Three Fingers as the only eyeball items, whereas the Lands Between has Shabriri Grapes as eyes scorched from within but being grasped by Three Fingers became not a staple but an exception (Vyke)! Marika was contacted by the Two Fingers, not Three Fingers, to have the power that she does. Even then, is not it logical to assume that even after Shabriri caused his curse on the Lands Between, a God would be immune, especially if the "counterpart" of the Three Fingers is their guide? Not to mention how Messmer did take a lot of burden off her by doing her wish for revenge by himself-

Alright, you got the point. It is very easy to logically conclude why there is no glaring contradiction at all, and you don't even need to dig deep into lore to find out why! This is the brightest case from my memory that is best described as 'if you WANT to believe that Fromsoft completely broke the story, you WILL find a backup claim for it'! But unfair criticism that doesn't address the possible counter-evidence is not the way to analyze! When you want to make a claim, you need to scan the overall volume of information for possible objections to your claim and deal with them! Explain why they do not work, or why they are not truly saying anything! Sometimes, as you deal with the potential counter-evidence, you find that there are things you cannot reliably argue against and it might make your initial claim appear less solid or lose validity altogether! And this is fine! As big as the temptation to "prove" something is, the true purpose of having a claim should be to make sure that it is valid all things considered!

Just because you are already too upset with the story and the writers to give it proper effort and analysis doesn't mean you can just toss a bold, easily debunked statement and expect to not have any objection! This is not in particular to the 'Frenzied Flame makes Marika's backstory impossible' person at all, but about a behavior in the fandom I've also noticed; where someone's response to the information that deconfirms their criticism is 'well, but I am already too hurt and disappointed to dig deep and analyze, so…' No, not how it works. You are making a claim about existing piece of writing and thus put skill of the writer up to scrutiny, not writing your own AU/headcanon, therefore be ready to deal with counter-evidence if there is any!

Another example off the top of my head was that existence of Gaius allegedly contradicted the pre-established lore about oppression of Albinaurics! I want to point out though that the person who originally made this claim was nice and never denied validity of the counter-arguments! But as for the subject, I will repeat that it is very easy to assume that there would be some double standards put in action! Like 'oh yeah Albinaurics are cringe, but this one is nice to me so he is an exception'! Or 'yeah we all hate Albinaurics, but this one is HELPING us in the Crusade against those spurned of Grace, he is paying the price for being an impure species himself, let's be nice to him guys :)' (🤡🤡🤡).

In this case things are easy to explain not through digging into information in the game further, but through putting into consideration how humans tend to work! Though Messmer, for one, has his more humane traits stated with how he respected the wishes of his Fire Knights when some of them protested against burning Rauh Ruins, and Gaius might be an extension of that sympathetic side of him! Opinion that saying Radahn was admired by the twins for his kindness contradicts the lore falls apart even EASIER; it is not hard to assume he maybe used to be kind! Miquella even specifically revived his younger version, and it is very telling!

All in all, the writers do not need to overexplain every single thing to prove that there is no contradiction or things make sense! Elden Ring is entirely written in such a way where by just digging deeper, connecting the dots or even applying your imagination and experiences you can easily explain why things work! I just want to really, REALLY accentuate it that before you cry 'bad writing!!!' or 'contradiction!!!', give it SOME extra thought! And if you are not willing to because of disappointment/weak attention span/anger/etc, then don't make the claim to BEGIN with! What is the point of making a claim when you are not in the right state of mind to make SURE it is valid? Bashing a story or a writer while willfully not being fair to them with your effort and research is something better reserved for private chats with the friends just to let it all out, but not for the public blog for all other fans to read and REACT at!

24) "If fans have to fill the gaps and think themselves it's a bad writing"

Sigh… This is relevant to the earlier addressed complaint about fans 'coping', and somewhat relevant to the complaint about 'they should have given more information', AND reverse complaint to how they've answered some questions in SoTE, I suppose. For starters, this argument could not be further from truth at all! Do you really, genuinely, want to say that instead of provoking you to think, to express creativity and curiosity, to apply your knowledge or experience for understanding, writers should have just spoon-fed you every single thinkable bit of information as if you are a toddler? For sure, the discussion about how writers treat reading comprehension of their audience cannot come without addressing the demographics that supposedly would benefit from "over-explanation", so I'll jump RIGHT into it, skipping through the normies:

As an autistic person, I do have my own problems with sometimes skipping through a subtext or an "obvious" clue in the writing, this is true, and maybe people who want to state this are also autistic, I can't know for sure. But.. do we REALLY want to have our intellectual abilities insulted, as a group? Accommodating to autistic people should come locally, like in teaching the society to be more patient with 'stupid' questions and explaining the 'obvious' social cues! It SHOULD be about society being better! It should NOT be about quality of fiction in videogames and movies and TV shows dropping! It should NOT be about writers sacrificing the amazing language of subtlety, nonverbal storytelling and speaking through assumption that our own experiences as human beings will fill in the gaps! We can understand subtexts and unspoken lore, even if it might be harder. When we cannot, autists that did understand the subtext explain it to us! When THEY cannot, there will always be the guy on Youtuber or elsewhere musing about what they liked or disliked in the writing, revealing the information that we might have missed, and we will go 'huh'. We can help ourselves and each other!

Instead of being mad at the writers for not giving more spoken information and evidence, let's place the pieces of the whole puzzle that we did find together to discover a full picture and teach others AND themselves to be patient instead of screaming "reeee media illiterate!!!" at every sneeze! I have insulted another autist's intellectual abilities over not reading the clue I managed to. I had MY intellectual abilities insulted by another autist over not reading the clue THEY managed to! We should strive to be better and kinder as society, AND we should have pride in the ability to do so and ourselves, instead of implying that complicated, subtle writing is "too hard" for our "tiny toddler brains"!

Aside of the general sentiment that the writing that provokes you to use your brain/heart/both to fully comprehend it and gives fuel for debates and discussion, I want to address specifically Miyazaki and how he approaches writing, and why he does so. I want to link the video by Zullie regarding the topic, too:

To paraphrase it: Miyazaki, in his youth, loved reading English novels, but because he didn't have as great knowledge of English language at the time, some words or even sentences evaded him and he had to use his own imagination to understand what might have happened in the parts he could not read! The experience of having general layout and understanding of the story, but details being missed here and there and left up to you to think about, is precisely what he wanted to emulate! You might guess "the words lost in translation" correctly, or you might end up with a completely different meaning than the actual one, but what matters is the fun of this process! To include YOU, an individual, into completing the story! Bloodborne was the first Fromsoft's story I've gotten into, and even before knowing this information I had the feeling like, 'ah, they've written the full story, but then dragged an eraser across random parts'… and so, the hunch was correct!

Miyazaki doesn't just lazily drop ingredients in your direction expecting you to cook anything from them and then praise it as though it was HIS brilliant recipe, that some writers WILL do to sorta take the credit for your creativity! Nor he just cooks the full meal and gives it to you. He removes some ingredient from it so you CAN eat it and enjoy it, but you are always tempted to add something! Something feels missing, but it is up to you WHAT spice you add to complete it! Yet this meal is coherent enough for you to have a hunch on whether you should add something sour, sweet or salty, it is not quite JUST anything! But if you don't think hard about it and add what YOU like, regardless of whether you think it fits the meal or not, the meal won't necessarily taste bad… There IS recipe that exists. He DID write the story. He just lets you choose your own experience!

^^^ It goes in line with how he creates the games; he stated they are not adding the difficulty levels so players can overcome the challenge in some way that suits THEM as a player. Whether you want to cheat, or to grind levels until you become a God, or to cleverly use the tools and items you are given, or to study every move until you dodge them all or whatever! There is no "right" way to beat these games, though we could conclude from levels designs and tools what was 'intended' way to beat them! A 'suggestion'! You might end up going just the 'intended' way, or you might not! You might just happen to guess the missing story bits 'correctly', but also not, and this is okay!

We are endlessly teased with this feeling that if we think just a bit harder we will discover that hidden "right" way, and we all want to believe that we did! Fandom has two extremes between people who DO believe in One True reading of the story and stomp out every alternative suggestion AND people that claim there is no story and you can do whatever and canon doesn't matter and doesn't exist and all. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and it is so frustrating, it is so torturous at the times… but also, so clever and beautiful.

This approach is why discussion about the meaning of Dark Souls and Bloodborne is STILL alive a decade later and even "apparent" lore questions constantly get revisited, and Elden Ring will meet the same fate! Every boss will be beaten but there is always a different way. Every lore question will be answered, but there is always a different answer. Isn't it much better than if we just cOnSuMeD cOnTeNt in a short time and forgot it all, waiting the next one?

25) *frankly unfair toxicity towards creators, down to racism against Japanese*

(Jeez.. I am REALLY paying a hard price by not saving the screenshots of the terrible takes I am referencing, aren't I. -_-" Everyone will just decide that I've made up a guy because a take like this sounds too awful to be real, doesn't it…..) Look- Some lines should NOT be crossed. Say all you want about the writing quality, but how DARE you to bring in this sort of anime fetishes into this discussion? I am just without proper words, and I will not tolerate this slander of Miyazaki! Everyone, EVERYONE knows…. that his fetishes are feet and dying in absurd ways.

sdfjfdhfdsh OKAY OKAY SORRY I HAD TO, but in any case! Did you guys miss the part where Miquella's ever-young body was a curse, was acknowledged as a curse, was a counterpart to Malenia ever decaying as inability to change at all, and something he transcended when he became a God? At NO point his curse was brought up as something quirky and attractive, at NO point Radahn or anyone was addressed as someone finding guilty attraction to him! We had one (1) guy suggested to do that, Mohg, and they confirmed that his behavior was result of enchantment, but even if it was not: without the new information, it already looked like a BAD thing. Like a HORROR thing, even! Miquella wanted Radahn to be there for him as a consort/king, by STATUS, that we know as much! Nothing is there to outright state any of 'that' brand of attraction! It can range from 'yeah they kind of pulled the dynasty-preserving incest thing, very authentic to medieval royal dynasties vibe' to 'it was innocent and not romantic or sexual in any manner, consort is just a status of the second person after a titular God in this setting that doesn't have to be a partner'. You know what is missing from this range? This being a "fetish" that you could flail around in that 'well what else to expect from jApAnEsE developers, you know jApAn has a problem with such things right??????' (🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡)

________________________________

*long, relieved exhale*

So..... yeah, I am done I suppose fhhfds I know I forewarned it as sort of super angry and rude rant, but in a way, it turned out to be more of a love letter to SoTE than a hate letter to a certain kind of fandomry that I just was not able to avoid..

It is funny how it turned out, as at first I've had strong negative reaction of shock, and Radahn consort reveal even soured the first days of playing this DLC for me, heh. That disappointment hadn't vaned yet.. I do not vigorously oppose weird, problematic ships of course, I still stand by what I said about creative freedom. But I guess I kinda did not want Miquella to have any "ship" in canon...? It is hard to explain why, since I do not insist that he is mentally a child too. Maybe I've fallen for the person he WANTED to be, a 'God' that 'loves everyone equally / no one', so him singling out someone disagreed with that "possessive" streak more than I disagreed with how random Radahn felt?

Even so, aside of this, I've been slowly understanding writers' decisions more and more! And those I did not understand I've found to be valid and not broken at all as well! But despite warming up to SoTE more and more with every day and becoming a fan, I was not able to avoid the "window" to VERY toxic and awful takes, some from very toxic PEOPLE, that was my (ex) mutual abundantly reblogging them and.. I guess when I've finally snapped about how strongly I disapproved of that behaviour and how it was all passive aggression all along, my very only inhibitor was just- *snaps fingers*

Moral of the story: if something rubs you a very wrong way, do not keep it in and ADDRESS it. Because if you hope that the alert factor will go on its own, all you'll end with is telling each other very unpleasant things. Pent up aggression ALWAYS breaks through.

In this case, I just feel relieved after having finally written all these thoughts down SOMEwhere. They were eating me from inside, reducing my HP by randomly appearing in my brain even when I was busy and I just could not help but rotate them. Venting is good and healthy. I have some bad troubles with both mental and physical health these days, but at least now there is one LESS thing to siphon my energy away. 🛏️

[even-more-pro-fiction-jellicle]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't get why some people think not shipping the most popular fandom ship makes them oppressed (it's about a group of a specific fandom, but probably could work for others too) I'd get if they were new to the fandom, but supposedly they have been there since their middle school years, unlike me, who was a newbie and afraid of "Oh no, this fandom is full of ships and I hate all of them, people gonna streamroll me!" But most people did not cared one bit. Most people were pretty friendly and understood it. From what I've noticed you get more bullying for what you ship, then what you don't ship. And this realization only took me a few weeks.

Then I found out that appearently the fandom was really different back then, and people were called homophobes for not shipping the most popular ship, others showed it in their face, despite knowing they didn't like it, sending them unwanted pics, and they felt pressured to to try to ship it, because they did not wanted to feel left out/called names, which is really awful, and they didn't deserve that, but that doesn't gives them the right to do almost the same thing with their own ship years later: like complaining about the popular ship being romantised, while they are doing the same with their similarly toxic ship (it's just a rarepair, so that makes it immunine to critism appearently), bullying people for shipping the most popular and calling them names (sounds familiar?), reporting them, saying all of the shippers of the popular ship are freaks and deserve what they get, even if a huge chunk of them are not even the same people who use to harass them and make them feel unsafe in the fandom. I get that they are traumatized, but the fandom changed a lot, and the fact they don't notice that they are doing a really similar thing to others that had been done to them, and think it's still the old fandom and they are still the victims is just sad to me. And the fact they are inflicting that victim mentality to other newbies, who enjoy the same ships as them...

I really don't want to disregard what happened to them, because I feel sorry for them, but they become what they sworn to destroy and when it gets brought up, they are like "Oh well, one of the popular shippers bullied my friend, that prooves that they are still bad!" I don't wanna act like the situation is black and white. I know that there are still bad eggs in the community, but there are bad eggs in every community and there are a lot of good people to, including the rarepair shippers, and a lot of them don't act like that and don't take place in the harassment, just minding their own business. I wish we could see that, instead of either "all the insert other group members are bad", or "all the insert community members are good". They are giving their group a bad name. Like as long someone is a decent person, it does not matter what they ship.

Alongside the more ideology-based pro vs anti discourse, there's always still just plain old ship wars. (Which intersects with the ideology-based discourse but the ideology isn't a requirement for ship warring.)

I think many people have a problem with falling into defensive behaviors so hard that they become offensive behaviors. And it's also very common to take any mistreatment you've faced and turn into a sense of righteous anger. And so defending your ship can very easily turn into degrading other ships and their shippers. Instead of realizing that it was the behaviors of certain individuals that were the problem, you think it's the ship itself and all of it's shippers that are the problem.

I've faced awful takes and posts from people with popular ships that I don't share (some of which I actually stopped shipping because the general shipping environment around them got so bad that it ruined it for me). And I can get kind of snarky about such ships, but I try to keep it to very minimal levels. It's understandable to want to vent some negative feelings, but you shouldn't let it become a main part of your personality and you shouldn't let it make you think it's ok to directly harass and degrade other people.

You're absolutely right, it doesn't matter what a person ships as long as they treat others decently. A lot of people forget that, even if they've been victims of ship hate themselves.

[askfriskthedj]

Time for me to move on, I think

So, you may have noticed that this blog has been pretty dead for a while now. And, truth be told, while a good portion of that was initially because of time restraints, most recently it’s because I’ve been pulling away from the fandom more and more. With the rise of people supporting some pretty rotten individuals(not gunna name names, but goodness, there are some pretty terrible people a lot of fans look up to, that honestly probably shouldn’t be), and the equal rise of really petty and antagonistic askers/anons I’ve seen on several other blogs, I’ve sorta lost the drive to continue with this myself. Heck, I’ve all but stopped drawing anything Undertale related at this point. 

And while it is true that I shouldn’t let others change my view of something I enjoy, a large part of why I got into the game/fandom was because of the fan content I saw come out of it. It was the fan works that brought me in in the first place, and to see that all that remains of the fandom is a lot of childish/immature/”savage” people who seem to think being edgy and anti-everything is the smart way to be just makes me sad. I had a lot of hopes that a game about kindness and mercy would bring people together and give back in positives ways. Yet, all I’ve seen from a lot of the major blogs is people spouting their headcanons as facts, getting all pissy over ships/shipping in general, and generally being super negative towards the people that support them. I have seen more than one person actively respond antagonistically to critique and just criticism, and I’ve seen so many people become negative influences on their fan base. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen a lot of good in the fandom as well. I’ve seen really great admins/muns of blogs, who are very kind and caring to their fans. People who support their fans in whatever they do, and are genuinely kind. However, as people are moving on to different interests, I’ve noticed that fewer and fewer of those people have stayed behind. And all that has remained as the “peak” of the fandom are the incredibly toxic and disgusting ones. The kind that make jokes specifically to hurt others, and who make disgusting jokes because they think it’s super edgy and cool to do so. The kind that play the victim every time they get any sort of negative review/hate. The kind of people who act all high and mighty when they try to make their content “close to canon”, and look down on AUs and stories that don’t. The kind that clearly don’t care about the message the game they are making content based off of tried to impart. it’s because of these people that I’ve lost any sort of spark for the game. I’ve lost any kind of interest in the content I was planning to make.

And so, after months of thinking on it, I have decided to close the blog up. I dunno if I’ll get around to deleting it or not, tho. I may re-purpose it for something else, who knows? All I do know is that it was fun to draw these characters. I had a lot planned with it, too. I wanted to get into animation to do some of the scenes of the comic, and I wanted to bring in more characters with more lore. No doubt, I would get a lot of people trying to tell me that “This isn’t canon!” as tends to happen when it comes to blogs like these, but I was really into the ideas I had when I had em. Oh well.  C'est la vie.

And, as always, Stay Frosty.

[shirophantomvox]

I need to get something off my chest….

Ok, let me preface this post by saying I know I am going to ruffle some feathers in this post and that’s ok. A few of you (thank you) have been questioning why I haven’t been posting as much and I have to be honest. I am beginning to run out of ideas to write about since the Hxh and Voltron fandoms are out of touch and both are becoming toxic as hell. I’ve also been received a lot of stupid criticism (not really critics but stupid opinions that don’t matter) I expect fandoms to be toxic (which is sad as fuck) but some of you act as if you have no fucking life at all. Do not send me anon messages that are non-analytical because I will clown you. To start off this rant, I would like to address issue #1.

Some of you have been sending me anonymous messages about how I depict Hisoka, how I write about him and so on. I’ve seen other people do the same thing to certain artists and writers. I want to make something PERFECTLY clear. In my fan-fictions, my drawings, or whatever the fuck I choose to do, I can depict him anyway I WANT.

I can change his skin tone if I want.

I can make him fall madly in love with my OC if I want.

I can make him an all star football player if I want

I can dress him in a crop top and jeans if I want.

Shit, I can make him wear a jogging pants and a hoodie or in boxers if I want.

With this part ⬆️, I haven’t seen this on Tumblr per say but I have seen it on Twitter.

It is my “world” and my depiction, I can do ANYTHING I want.

Some of you feel the need to harass other STRANGERS on the internet about how they draw Hisoka and his character so differently than the show. Isn’t that the point of having an imagination? Some of you fly off the handle because someone dare says that they do not like your art or whatever. Freedom of speech exists! And if you’re constantly spamming someone because they disliked your artwork…? Get a fucking life. How do you expect to work in animation studios or write for one if you can’t take criticism?

Shipping was a fun aspect for me once I began to embrace my love for anime but now it's a whole thing that makes me angry. I’ll say this once and no more. If someone wants to ship Hisoka and Machi, LET THEM. If someone wants to ship Hisoka and Illumi, Let them. If someone wants to ship LANCE and ALLURA, LET THEM. FYI, some of y’all’s hatred towards Lance and Allura isn’t setting right with me and feels like borderline racism. For those of you that have this hatred towards Allura without reasonable evidence and claims that she’s racist you need to touch grass. For the life of me, you “stans” not fans have been showing your asses for so long it makes me sick. Some of you have gone to far out of your way to threaten voice actors because your ship wasn’t canon. Some of you on this website have such toxic views and hate towards Allurance it makes me wonder do you think they’re not compatible or are you racist? It’s ok to dislike a ship but y’all be expressing that you DESPERATELY HATE Allurance. I saw a TikTok video about why shows like Voltron destroyed itself: Link 1 and Link 2 (about Animal Crossing hairstyles).

Let people do what they want. I see most of you do not have a life at all and probably cannot function in everyday society if you sit on the internet and say “…..you need to go to therapy if you ship Hisoka and Machi.” I’ve seen bullshit like this. And yes, If you’re triggered, I’m talking about you. I think the sad part about it is the people doing this are young-to grown adults. Shouldn’t you be working? Or in School? Or, IDK, figuring out the rest of your life? Because of this, I only support canon relationships. If the context clues and evidence provides, I’ll ship them.

There are some ships I do not like but guess what? Do I go out of my way to harass people who ship something I don’t? NO. Maybe it’s because I actually have a life 🤔. I forget that most of you are keyboard warriors and wouldn’t ever engage in half of the shit you do online.

Lastly, stop telling black cosplayers that they cannot cosplay as (ex: Sailor Moon) because they’re black. Um, excuse me? I’ve seen countless TikTok videos where Black women especially get told that they can’t cosplay as a certain character because the character isn’t black. Most of you that partake in this behavior are NOT allies to POC and are just as racist as your grandfathers. If you are guilty of being racist towards ANYONE in this community, you need to fucking excuse yourself and leave, disrespectfully.

Ok, I am done. Now that I’ve got this off my chest, I will hopefully be posting soon.

[seercayder]

No but I feel as though artists are probably experiencing one of the most hostile years of posting art online that they’ve ever experienced for maybe forever. And I mean this for both amateur artists and professionals (with maybe a lil bit of bias since I also do The Art).

Tumblr’s nudity ban has crippled any piece that is either NSFW or uses nudity as artistic expression and it ultimately drove away both the artists themselves and a lot of their fans, which destroyed any remaining traction for the artists who managed to remain. Tumblr is no longer an artistic freedom-friendly site and it shows, which is a fucking shame bc they genuinely have one of the better tagging systems than other sites and I believe that most feedback on art there has been positive and friendly, which has now gone the way of the dinosaur much like Deviantart.

Twitter has problems with image compression but their biggest issue is toxic abuse, which I find to be the most damaging to artists out of all the other problems i’m listing here. Both the lure of anonymity and the mindset that ‘Speak Loud In Little Words To Make Point Means You Are Important And Right’ has fuelled the absolutely vile comments I have seen directed at artists on the site. Although it’s mainly aimed at fanartists and ship artists, I have noticed unwanted (even rude) criticism on immaculate, well-done art pieces, which is extremely belittling and insulting because the artist (although they may be open to criticism) if they haven’t asked for criticism then that means that they are not in the right mindset to receive any, and therefore it is not your place to throw disparaging comments at them.

But the biggest issue with abuse on Twitter is obviously aimed at fan-artists, especially those those that draw NSFW or “problematic” content. I could go into a whole spiel about how a drawing of a fictional character doesn’t affect reality but in short: If you find disturbing art of a non-existent character (or hey, even non-disturbing art, it’s just something you don’t like) then ignore it. Don’t go and fucking bully the artist you psychopath. If it is truly illegal then report the piece and then see if it gets taken down. Because 90% of the time it won’t be taken down because it doesn’t go against guidelines and you’re just trying to police the site like you’re the thought-police, monitoring other peoples art as if you have the god-given right to. And if you’re a minor stay the fuck out of 18+ accounts. Don’t comment, don’t follow, don’t even look. I am absolutely amazed by the mindset that some children have to waltz into a space not made for them and having the balls to insult the 18+ artist, who have specifically said “no minors”, for posting icky content. It gets even worse when you see how they abuse the Privatter or Curiouscat links the Twitter artists provide, made for anonymous feedback or for being the final barrier for an adult piece that says “hey this stuff is NSFW, don’t click if you are underage, last warning”. I’m gonna go into this more when I cover TikTok in the next few paragraphs. But ultimately, the artists on that site are having to be constantly vigilant against abuse, and it’s not unusual for them having to spend hours going through their 1K+ followers and having to block every underage follower who just didn’t fucking listen to their warnings. Imagine how exhausting and irritating and down-right uncomfortable that must be; having to monitor every fan that sees your work out of fear that they’re a minor seeing adult content or that they could throw abusive comments at you. Horrible.

Instagram is saturated with bots attempting to steal your work or advertise it on their own page and feedback isn’t really a ‘thing’ on there. Also, their algorithm (which may have also been implemented on Twitter, I believe that the Twitter algorithm now avoids promoting popular artist terms, but I can’t be certain bc the Twitter post that pointed this out is long-lost in the depths of my timeline, bc again, no tagging system) is based more around sharing than likes, which can be a huge barrier to artists. Sure, you may like someones art and even leave a nice comment on it, but do you really want to share every piece you come across, especially if it’s not something you would show dear Aunty Susan who follows you? It’s infuriating that a whole site dedicated for images is so difficult to use for artists, and with Instagram implementing features that are similar to Snapchats ‘stories’ it’s clear they’ve moving in a different direction, focusing on momentary attention-grabbing photos. This is simply because Instagram is advertising itself as more of a promotional influencer site nowadays, and anything that could sully their reputation has to be thrown into the algorithm trash. NSFW art or just plain ‘bad’ art? Trash. If you’re not gonna make money for them then why should they bother? You wanna promote your art? Pay for it because the algorithm will absolutely be working against you.

Now, the biggest fucking offender for worst art-sharing site of the year is TikTok (no surprise there), which is absolutely rampant with reposts and uncredited artwork and a gateway for abusive comments against artists. Like the Ouroboros snake, it goes through the same pattern every time; People (usually minors) find art on Twitter or Pinterest and repost it, usually without credit or going against the artist’s wishes about reposting. Then it either goes two-ways: Firstly, if the piece is SFW it will get about five-seconds of interest, a like for the reposter and people will then just move on. TikTok is built entirely around short bursts of satisfaction, feeding a a constant loop of serotonin for a few seconds before you move on. So ultimately, people rarely then hunt down the original artist, especially if their credit isn’t readily available, and usually the original artists doesn’t see any rise in likes, followers or popularity and are usually unaware that their art is even getting any attention on TikTok.

Or, if the art is NSFW, it can go down the second way. It is reposted and, as the majority of TikTok users are under-18, many users find the image uncomfortable, especially if it is a bit more ‘out-there’ or of a ship they don’t like. The reposters sometimes find the image off of Privatter, which is even worse since the piece has been posted to Privatter not just as a final barrier against minors, but also as a form of directing the piece to a specific and niche audience due to it’s... spicer than usual NSFW content. I’m talking really specific pieces with really specific kinks. Now that piece is floating around TikTok, widely seen by the general fans of a fandom, who again, are usually underage. The viewers grow uncomfortable, as the piece is not made for them, especially since sometimes the reposter only posted the piece for shock-value, and would even encourage insulting comments by only posting the credits for the purpose of getting fans to throw abuse at the artist (”The artist is ***** but they ship **** and are icky”) and so the viewers finally decide to make the effort to hunt down the original artist, only to throw insulting and bullying comments at them, made worse by the fact that they are children who don’t have the sense to hold back and have been fuelling their mindset in the echo-chamber that is TikTok.

And as a result of a lot of this hostile feedback for artists, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a space for amateur artists who are just starting out, since the art community is becoming a little bit scary. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that new (or not even new but recently promoted) sites such as Artstation are becoming a better place for professional artists only, but it is very intimidating for learner artists. That’s not necessarily a bad thing - I believe that part of the reason for Deviantarts decline was that the tagging system was horrible, so good art was being drowned out by amateur, fetish content, so more advanced artists were distancing themselves from the site, especially if they were trying to build a portfolio for employment. I also find that fanart usually gets far more likes than more original art pieces, even if the original piece is amazingly good, which isn’t a criticism against fanart but posting your original piece on a site more aimed at professional pieces may help you reach your target audience better and improve likes and interaction. However, that does mean that if you are an amateur, or hell, just an average artists who is still learning, your best bet for exposure is posting your piece across multiple sites and very, very regularly, braving any abusive comments if you try anything slightly “spicy”. Which, obviously, become a very potentially toxic atmosphere and it’s not uncommon for artists to feel burn-out or depressed at their lack of attention or the cyber-bullying they may receive.

I’m not trying to say that posting artwork has always been easy, but there is definitely a more aggressive culture surrounding it and I think artists have to be aware that chances are they will face insulting comments, reposters, frustrating algorithms, cyber-bullying, a lack of interaction and burn-out as they try and appeal to websites that would do the bare minimum for you in terms of promotion.

This isn’t meant to be a post to scare away artists, I just wanted to point out that there is a big fucking problem and it feels as though it’s getting worse. Nowadays, websites have become a bit too comfortable targeting creators rather than fans when it comes to monitoring content and artists have been put under more and more pressure as they face more and more abuse that is rarely addressed, especially by the sites themselves that host the content. Things that are a huge punch in the face for artists, such as NFT’s, are becoming more normalised and it’s honestly just sad.

[justkillthetitan]

Charles and Grace

So this is gonna be a long-ish post of me talking about Charles and Grace and my personal thoughts about this characters since I have seen a lot of hate towards them (some of which I agree with). This is a mess and I am not good at this, so do not expect too much from me. This are my thoughts after a few days fro finishing the book, so it will be interesting to see them in a couple of months.

Charles

So, as part of the ProtectAlastairCarstairsSquad, I know the first reason why many people do not like him, but I think that the hate that Charles is getting is a little too much. Yes, he did placed his career over Alastair and thus hurt my child, but I can sympathize with his reasoning. This is the early 1900s where homosexuality was frowned upon within the Shadowhunter community, and it is stated that Charles wants to become the Consul, and so having a public homosexual relationship with Alistair is out of the question if he wants to accomplish his dream of becoming the Consul. Now, this small little part of his decisions can either make people mad or sympathize with him. While I love reading love stories in TSC, I am a firm believer that having a romantic partner isn’t… that much of a priority for everyone. I am a firm believer that romantic love isn’t everything, that having someone that loves you doesn’t solve all your problems like in a fairy tale (and I know this is kind of contradicting because Charles is a fictional character in a fictional story), and that sacrifices must be make if you want to accomplish something (I sound like such a heartless villain, I know). With this in mind, I think Charles choosing becoming the Consul over having a public relationship with Alastair isn’t a reason to hate him. He is thinking about himself and his happiness, which in itself isn’t selfish has most of us average people do the same. I cannot even blamed him from giving Alastair false hopes, because he did not as per said in page 270:

“It is what I have wanted all my life. You understand. I told you all my hopes in Paris.”

and

“What did I say? I would not make any false promises. You know how it must be. We are both men of the world.”

What I am trying to say, is that I don’t resent him for choosing to become the Consul and getting engaged with a woman. Although I am mad at the fact that he told Alastair that his engagement to Ariadne was temporary as said in page 270. If he was not planning on ending their engagement, I think he shouldn’t had lied to Alastair. It is sad to see what he has to do in order to have the career he wants, very unfair, but if he is willing to damage his relationship with Alastair than that is his own decision. And has the book said, some love isn’t enough, and that isn’t a bad thing. Not everyone has happy endings. And I know Alastair was hurt because of this, but I think that when you love someone you are always putting yourself in the line of getting hurt, whether it be in this extreme or the other. That’s the reality of being in a relationship. But just to make sure, I AM NOT BLAMING ALASTAIR. I sympathize with his hurt too, but I just can’t hate Charles as much as others do. I hate that he hurt Alastair, but in the situation that he was in, I can’t blame him for this particular decision. It would be another story if the story took place in 2020, since having a career and being in a same-sex relationship is possible and not frown upon as much as it was back in the 1900s.

Now I want to talk a little about the situation with Ariadne. It was very, very, very shitty of him to end their engagement when she was in the verge of dying. I don’t really like Ariadne, but Charles left her knowing that his actions would damage her reputation as a woman. He was very selfish since he was explicitly damaging the life of someone. That was shitty of him, and a one of the reason why I am glad Alastair is not with him anymore, that particular action says a lot about himself and how important are his priorities.

I also think the fandom is jumping on this whole ‘toxic relationship’ a little too soon. I know it is easy to connect Alastair bleaching his hair blond to his relationship with Charles, but there is really no proof that Charles was the reasoning behind Alastair’s decision, and I personally think that that thought process is giving Charles a little too much credit. I really don’t want Alistair’s decisions being based on his relationship with Charles (although having a queer toxic relationship would be very interesting to see, since it is very rare to see that in books) and I don't think that will be the case in this situation, since CC has talked about racism within the Shadowhunter community and Shadowhunters, a different aspect than when this topic was touched with Shadowhunters and Downworlders, and I would prefer her to elaborate a little more about this topic with Alastair’s story if possible. I don’t think Charles and Alastair were in a toxic relationship, I think they were in a relationship in which both did not want the same thing and did not had the same goals. They had different priorities and wants, and thus it was meant to fail.

In summary, I have conflict feelings with Charles.

Grace

I do feel sympathy for the situation that Grace is in. Living with her toxic mother all these years, I think her desperation to get away from her is genuine. But with that said, I do not approve of the way that she is trying to get away from her mother, aka the Gracelet. Depriving someone from their free will to use them as her tools is shitty in a whole other level, even if she feels remorse about it, which she seems to be, although she can also be lying about it. At the beginning her character was likable and even her romance with James was kinda cute and shippeable, but it all went downhill with the Gracelet (I would had prefer having Grace has James’ first love despite the whole ‘Herondales only love once’ thing which seems kinda overdone and redundant, and having a heartbroken main character over someone else that is not the main female character is different to Will, Jace, or Julian’s love life. This is an aspect that I wish CC would had kept). I like the concept of the Gracelet which reminds me of, you guessed it, “to love is to destroy and to be loved is to be destroyed” (of course not forced love). I am excited to see the new trouble that this weapon will give up, how the whole thing with Charles  - I hope I am not the only one who is worry about him and feels bad for him- and James plays out. 

The hard thing is that I don’t know if Grace will be able to have a redemption arc if CC is playing to give her one. Like, Alastair was an asshole to the MT back in school but he stopped being an asshole after school because he did not needed to be one. He did not due anything hurtful or harmful to them in CHOG, instead he helped them and showed genuine remorse about it, and thus I think he deserved redemption. But taking people free will and doing sexual assault (because that’s what she did to Matthew with that kissed)... that is taking it too far. 

[hecohansen31]

Could you maybe write a piece about the Reader and Duncan? She got kicked out of her parents house (like Michael left barefoot only with his jeans jacket except she got to grab her shoes but no jacket) and wanders through the city. Freezing. Duncan sees her and offers her to spend the night on his couch. When they get to his appartement she takes a warming shower. The Reader showers a bit too long in his opinion so he decides to check on her. It kinda ends with smut..Thank you!

(A/N): Hello there, lovely!

Before I proceed with the fic, I am going to make a HUUUUGGGEEE author note, that I know nobody will read, but I still hope some will.

@xavierplym received the same identical ask for Xavier; now I obviously do have to say that I was torn about whether I should write this ask or not, because let me tell you, I am honestly a bit bothered by received IDENTICAL asks to the ones of my fellow writers.

I obviously decided on writing it because I already had an idea to work on, but it still irked me off in the worst way.

It’s absolutely a disrespectful thing to send similar asks to different writers, because maybe you might end up making two people fight over them and alongside this it is just a rude and disrespectful way to interact with a writer.

I honestly am not surprised because this fandom has so much toxicity, but still, if you want me to continue on answering your asks I am going to ask you not to send me identical asks (I’ll stop answering them and try to block you) and also that if you want to try to send me an identical ask with a different character that you actually ask me and the other writer involved if we feel comfortable.

I know that most people in this fandom are like ‘yeah things are never going to change’ but I am not somebody who simply waits for things to change and if this keeps happening, I won’t only stop writing fanfics about Cody Fern’s characters but also the asks about him.

 WARNINGS: Mention fo Anxiety, Depression, Toxic Families, Being Kicked Out, Smut.

Duncan was partying, his small college apartment full of guys of his age going around with the usual smoking and drinking, when his phone beeped.

He ignored it at first, more because of the loud sound of the music, but the constant vibration appeared again and he slowly reached out to look who was calling him, as he dismissed the pretty brunette he had had on his laps, a few minutes before.

There were only two people who dared to call him again after he didn’t reply: his mother and you.

And apparently, he got lucky: it was you.

He immediately replied, since he hadn’t heard of you in days, having gone back to your family for the holidays.

He knew that you hadn’t the best time with your family: a bunch of oppressive bigots that didn’t understand you and wanted solely one of the many sides of you.

It had taken him entire years to see through that strong exterior you put to survive, which had hidden a truly devastated creature.

He had been the one encouraging you to go to therapy and to follow a different path from the one your parents had laid out for you, in a way that had made you blossom brilliantly and he already could see the shadow of the woman you would soon becoming with his help and the proper cures.

You had chosen, because of his encouragement, to come out to your family about your mental health issues and your intention to follow a different major in order for you to follow your dreams, since you had yourself recognized that what you were working forward in the moment would bring you no happiness.

Still you were scared because of all the prejudices of your family, you had seemed determined and Duncan couldn’t help but be prouder of you.

He had met you on your first year of college, you were one of many laidback girls at his partied parties, the one who had accompanied a friend who wanted to approach him, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself to fall in love with the girl that hadn’t given him a single crumb of attention.

You had been cold with him, and he had slowly tried everything to get you to warm up to him, eventually developing a long-lasting friendship with you: you kept him grounded and he permitted you to dream.

But to him it wasn’t a simple friendship, it had never been.

But he just didn’t feel like taking advantage of your slowly healing soul and had put a step back in everything he might feel for you, happy with simply being on your side.

“… hey (Y/N)!” he replied softly “… everything alright? Already got your gifts?”.

“Dun… Duncan…” your voice was trembling and shivering.

His heart lost a beat, as he moved away, the party suddenly becoming too loud for him.

“… I am sorry… I am sor… to bother you… can I come… to you?”.

“Sweetie, what?” he wasn’t understanding the entire situation.

You should have been home, celebrating Christmas happily, not crying into his phone.

“… they… “a huff of sadness was emitted straight into your phone, coming onto Duncan’s in a way that made him almost picture you as you took a steadying breath in your crying hysterics “… they kicked me out”.

Shame was all onto your tone, and it took him a minute to feel the entire thing settling in his heart and ears.

“… what…? No no, sweetie, where are you?” he asked, immediate desperation coming onto him “… is everything alright?”.

“On a bus” and he immediately heard all the other noises confirming this “… they weren’t… Gosh… Duncan this is a mess… I am a mess”.

“No no, sweetie, you are not! You are coming here, right?” he just felt like there was an extreme urgency to get you safe and feel you in his arms “… sweetie stay on the phone with me, ok?”.

Now the party had all zooned out, around him, as the noises all around you heightened.

“… Duncan I don’t want… I shouldn’t have bothered you… I shouldn’t…” your sobs were now so loud that they made his heart tighten in his chest, as they broke it horrendously, the knowledge that you were so sad making him desperate “… I am a fucking bother to the world”:

“You are not” each word was pointed out with a meaningfulness that seemed to get to you as he lowered himself lightly against a wall, trying to mimic your seated position on the bus “… (Y/N) that is bullshit, you are never ever EVER a fucking bother”.

“They said I was” you scream screeched loudly in his ear, almost painfully “… they said it was all I have ever been and that… I was making up… the depression… the anxiety and everything… I just… they didn’t seem my parents, they attacked me and threw me out”.

Your voice was now lowering itself to be a whisper as if you were slowly losing your willingness to talk.

“They are not your parents, they are shit, sweetie” his tone instead was steady and firm as you screeched a bit at his aggressiveness “… they should love you no matter what, not punish you for something that is beyond your control”:

“But maybe… just maybe they are right… I am just weak and faking…” a loud sob destroyed any pretense you might have had of speaking properly as you fell in an immediate silence “… I don’t know Duncan, I just want to… I am just bothering you”:

“What bothers me is that I have to wait till tomorrow to call your parents and tell them what big fucking assh..:”.

A light laugh made you smile yourself, before a soft laugh abandoned your mouth.

“… just come here, sweetie, and I am going to take care of you”.

And an hour later you were in Duncan’s apartment, after he had gotten everyone outside his house.

The small brunette he had wanted to use as a distraction had leeched onto him as he shouted that ‘the party was finished’, and he had pushed her away swiftly not wanting her smell to stay on him as you came in.

You certainly weren’t stupid enough not to know of his playboy ways, but the more he stayed with you the less he felt the need, he just seemed to lose any trace of interest for anyone that wasn’t you.

He had come to collect you at the bus stop, his eyes looking through anyone that exited the bus, till they had found your shrieking body, your face stained by tears but you had managed to push it into a neutral expression, as you adjusted your hoodie around you.

They hadn’t even allowed you to take your jacket.

And it was December.

He would have killed them.

He gave you his immediately, although you insisted you didn’t need it, but he encouraged you to take it as he pushed it onto your frame, so so dainty and fragile that he almost was scared to touch you as he led you to his car.

“… thank you” your tone was steady, but you lips wavered a bit, close to forming a sob, and Duncan simply turned to you, gently, not daring to touch you, but a smile appeared on his face, mimicked by a weaker one on yours.

“The things I’d do for you, sweetheart, are infinite” he mumbled.

Once you were inside, you scrunched your nose at the smell of the party that had been there, not one for parties yourself, as you were ready to mumbled a soft apology to Duncan who stopped you, raising an hand.

“… the booze wasn’t even good”.

Again, a soft smile, although it didn’t reach your empty eyes.

“… I just… I didn’t know what to do, Duncan, I am very fucking sorry”.

“You did the right thing, lovely, you called me” he replied, gently pushing his hand out to grab onto your hands, unsure whether you wanted to be touched or not, and you gripped back, although weakly “… I am always here for you”.

“I don’t know where to start” and he noticed immediately your shivering form.

“… a shower might be a good idea”.

“Are you suggesting that I smell?” you laughed through your tears, as Duncan opened the bedroom doors.

“… maybe” he retorted softly as you faked to aim his jacket to him “… a warm bath will soothe everything”.

You didn’t look too convinced but you let him guide you to the bath, closing the door in his face in a resounding rejection that pained him, because he had tried through everything to at least let you be open with him, but he gave you your space.

Collecting the few things you dropped at his place in case you needed to crash.

In case Duncan needed you.

There had been pretty restless nights also for him.

He wouldn’t be able to sleep because of everything, because of his own family’s fucked problems and you would just need a phone call to slip into his house for intellectual talks or anger filled tantrums.

Now you needed him, almost desperately.

And he hoped he could ease your mind the way you did with him.

He kept his eyes trained onto the clock analyzing the time you spent under the shower: you were usually quite quicker, which was abnormal for a girl, but you always joked about the fact you wanted to save the planet.

Half an hour was gone, and he could still hear the droplets of water and the shower running.

He let five minutes pass and then another give minutes and another again till it was enough, and his worry got the best of him, since he knew perfectly well that you weren’t in any shape to stand under water too long.

You had never had suicidal thoughts although depression was tough on you, but with the new variant in your mind, he couldn’t feel at ease knowing you alone, although you had asked hm to do so.

He knocked on the door, receiving no response the water covering his voice as he shouted if you were ok, which made him almost wonder what was going on, and then he gently pushed onto the door, finding it open, without the door even being closed, barely pushed against its hinges.

Something that made him feel lightly more comfortable about intruding into you.

“(Y/N)!” he asked, staying on the threshold, to avoid intruding further in your privacy.

You were still in the shower, the stained glass obscuring your figure as your head peaked out of it, lightly opening it, and revealing your reddened face and naked neck, attentive to avoid looking further than that, as a bit of your chest was exposed.

“… sorry, didn’t mean to intrude onto you, I just… wanted to check on you”.

“I am fine, just soaking in the warmth of this luxury shit” you retorted, your tone lightly hoarse but some life had come back to your tone.

“Don’t want to save the world anymore?” he joked back, and she smirked sadly.

“… this is my safe bubble” you shot back, your smile disappearing from your face as you lightly slung behind “… leave me to my safe bubble”.

“I would, lovely, I would” he shot back, moving to turn around “…but you might have a bit of low-pressure problem if you stay in longer”.

“Then get me out” your tone was harsh, the graveness of it completely destroying the challenge in it, but it still caught Duncan’s attention as he turned to face you.

“I don’t think that this is what you want” he retorted, his face growing dark, but he stilled at the door.

“…I do think that I know what I want” you replied tightly between your teeth “… is it so difficult to understand it?”.

“Sweetheart, you are hurting, this won’t solve anything” he pointed out each word.

“Let me understand it on my own” you retorted with the same tone, angry and hurt, as a wounded animal “… or the womanizer Duncan is afraid of me?”.

And with that you opened fully the door to the shower, revealing your body in all his nervous glory.

He knew that some people pushed themselves in some pretty dark corner, but what you wanted was so achingly exposing for him that it hurt him.

And he wondered if he would simply hurt you more.

But his body decided for him, moving on its own as he discarded a few of his clothes, leaving him only in his boxers as you stepped back lightly to let him in, as he, instead leaned himself further to kiss you on your lips as you joined him on your tiptoe and then the water hit you both.

Making you both forget what was going on.

You were in your safe bubble, indeed.

[bardofv0id]

Meat vs. Candy: Meat

Here’s the thing.

I’m hearing two main arguments online... a lot of people saying the epilogues are Terrible, for various reasons, and a few people saying they're Good, with a smaller but vocal subset of those people arguing that if you don’t like them then you’re obviously just expecting to be spoon-fed a fluff ending in which the Character You Like gets a wish-fulfillment storybook epilogue.

There are probably some people who are mad about not getting that. However, I think misrepresenting the range of anger various parts of the fandom are experiencing as being purely some kind of childish knee-jerk tantrum at not getting the toy they wanted is disingenuous, at best, and parallels some of the mistakes of the epilogues themselves.  Note that this in no way excuses or justifies people sending the writers or anyone else death-threats or whatever the hell else has been going on.

Honestly... the Meat ending was pretty good writing, in my opinion.  It wasn’t comfortable or happy or flattering in any way to a number of characters who I recognize people care deeply about, but it was nothing really worse than I expected from Earth C, based on the fundamental narrative of Lord English’s giant closed-loop system.  The loop had to close, in order for Homestuck proper to occur at all.  That means that Earth C is where Calliope and Caliborn hatch and grow up, far, far in the future. And that means that universe, like the others, will be destroyed by a SBURB session one day. Sorry, folks.  It was never meant to be a 'happy ending'.

Meat was deeply metatextual. It was gristly and greasy and discomfiting.  It raised questions about what it means to have a narrator, and whose biases are implicitly included--and I think those are very interesting questions to raise, whether or not they are particularly satisfying to someone who is also reading for the characters.

Spoilers beyond the read-more, for obvious reasons.

That said, there were elements that did surprise me.  The removal of the other kids from different points in different doomed timelines, to fight with John against LE, rather than being his teammates from Earth C--but from John’s perspective, it doesn’t seem like there’s much difference.  Either way, they’re not fully ‘real’ to him (and barely feel real to us, as quickly as they appear and then die). He’s from the Game Over timeline, he’s battling depression, and nobody in the retcon timeline is really quite authentic to him, either--just as to many fans, they didn’t feel quite authentic, when the retcon happened and we had to suddenly let go of the characters we'd watched grow and change, replaced by funhouse mirror reflections and could-have-beens.

I’ve also seen some reasonably interesting arguments that a lot of Dirk’s narration, in the Meat route, either sounds eerily like Vriska talking or flips back and forth between Vriska-mode and Dirk-mode, well before alt!Calliope ever gets involved.  I’m prepared to believe some Serket element (whether that is potentially Vriska, or the Aranea who was abruptly displaced from her attempt at wresting control of the narrative by John) was involved there, and Dirk was not acting entirely of his own accord.  I’m also prepared to shrug and say “okay, maybe it was just a narrative parallel--Homestuck does that a lot”.  Some narration, especially when Terezi is involved, doesn't sound at all how I would expect a Serket-influenced narrator to sound with regards to her, in particular.  It doesn’t particularly grind my gears to think some version of Dirk, in the right environment, might make a series of choices that leads him to behaving like this, entirely on his own.  I recognize that it’s upsetting to DirkJake fans in particular to see their favorite pairing written like this, but it doesn’t feel wholly out of character to me for either of them to develop in these directions, given the right (or wrong) pressures and external situations. This Dirk is the culmination of a very wide multiplicity of Dirks, including at least one if not more who ended up directly subsumed in Lord English and/or under his explicit influence.

I’ve heard that some people were attacking the Meat route on the grounds of transphobia, which... I think is a rather weak argument, given that it’s recognized in the text itself, as pronoun changes are handled respectfully by one narrator-character and inconsistently by a second, who is being set up as the villain of the story. That seems like a pretty solid metatextual rejection of the action, no?  Like, if a villain does a bad thing, in a story, while the hero is fighting them, do you argue that the story itself advocates for that thing? There has to be some kind of distinction between ‘character does X’ and ‘author of story advocates X is Morally Correct’, or we would never have any villains at all. Dirk's dismissiveness toward Roxy's agency grows, the further toward 'villain' he slides.

Were there some things I liked, in Meat?  I guess.  From a sociopolitical and cultural standpoint, the shitty repercussions of the way the retcon gang set up a planet, dumped a bunch of chess people and clone grubs, then left them to do all the work of creating its society and waiting for their eventual 'godly' return... were pretty logical. I'm actually happy that it was acknowledged, instead of just brushed off as inconsequential.  It was interesting, too, to see some of the kids playing with notions of gender identity as they grew, and how their companions adjusted. It was telling (in terms of Dirk's character development) how he thought of Roxy and Calliope's gender explorations as something he could choose to 'allow' or not. Also, with how truncated most of the gang's personal development (and plot development) was in Homestuck proper ('thanks', retcon!Vriska), I think it kinda made sense how stunted and incapable of like... dealing with regular life in a functional way a lot of them seemed. Jumping straight to teenage 'godhood' didn't make them experienced or smart. It's sad that all of them just kind of... stagnate there, but Earth C has always felt incredibly stagnant to me.

Retcon!Vriska getting swallowed by the black hole was at least thematically fitting, though I'm wondering why she is using such Seer-themed language, suddenly. I also like that the wallet is finally back in play. Rose and Dirk's philosophical debate about individuation and free will is delightfully creepy, given the themes of the story. There are moments, within the story, that the turns of phrase and the humor just hit me full in the teeth and remind me this is Homestuck, and I do love those moments.  And of course, my xenobiological worldbuilding interests enjoyed that apparently, earth onions are quite toxic to trolls.

Were there things I didn’t like in Meat?  Yeah, of course. I don't particularly like that John, an Heir of Breath--one who is innately positioned to awaken Breath, freedom and motivation in the people around him--callously shoves an unresisting teenager he's barely met into a refrigerator and just leaves him there, apparently convinced he deserves it.

Did some of the things I disliked relate to the storytelling itself, rather than just how characters were characterized, or what actions they took?  Yeah. Why are we still out here queer-baiting with Dave and Karkat?  Years have passed.  They have spent literal years sitting 1.5 feet apart so it's 'not gay'? I sincerely don't think this pairing is actually healthy or beneficial to either of them, the way it developed in canon, but come on. Then, they still balk and drag their feet unless it's being narratively pushed on them by someone else. It's just painful to watch.

I also take a certain level of personal offense as a Tavros fan when the narrative goes out of its way to repeatedly harp on Tavros being useless and no one giving a shit what he's doing.  Ghost Tavros was awesome, okay, and was personally responsible for gathering the ghost army, so fuck you, Vriska-coded narrator. You have bad judgment. But that is not a crime of writing, if it is an intentionally biased perspective and not just writers taking cheap shots at a character they don't happen to like. I'm just incredibly tired of it being done habitually and collectively, as a fandom, to that character in particular. Furthermore, I'm really discomfited by the way Tavros's development (am I the only one who remembers him dancing and telling Vriska to suck it?) is completely ignored and de-legitimized by having him immediately fawning on her, trailing around after her, hiding against her shoulder, etc.  Tavros was a victim of emotional and physical abuse, at Vriska's hands.  Can we just agree to stop narratively forcing victims back into contact with their abusers, period? It's not a good look.

Moreover, there's the whole misogyny angle.  When does a story about misogynistic characters (and narrators) doing misogynistic things while misogynistic shit narratively happens start being a critique of misogynistic tropes rather than a tired old rehash?  Every step Jane (allegedly a strong, independent woman, though also stepping into her dictatorial role as 'Heiress') takes is either dictated by Dirk, sent into a complete tailspin that upends her confidence by Jake, or verbally decried as factually wrong and/or stupid by Dave and/or Karkat.  Rose and Kanaya both have their agency overwritten and end up separated from each other through the actions of Dirk, and Rose becomes an extension of Dirk, losing her very selfhood.  Jade is treated as an accessory to the DaveKat trainwreck, simultaneously discounted as actually emotionally relevant and blamed for its ludicrous problems.  She, of course, also ends up having her agency overwritten as she's plunged into a coma and possessed, prevented from actually having reactions to the things that are going on, or taking action for herself. Borrowed!Rose and Jade are KO'd almost instantly in the fight against Lord English, and become either literally erased, or dead weight for a male character to drag around until it's no longer convenient. Terezi admits to wasting a huge amount of time trailing around after Vriska--who was an emotionally abusive gaslighter to her, on the retcon!meteor. (And we're back to victims being constantly evaluated according to their proximity to their abusers again.) Then, she's on to redirecting herself into some quest on John's behalf, instead. She's still not living for herself. Finally, you show me an Aradia who would ever, ever be concerned about 'saying more embarrassing stuff' around Dave, or thinking of him as an ‘outrageously cool dude’, and I'll show you a bridge I'd like to sell you.  That ain't any Aradia I've ever seen. So who’s narrating there, Dirk again? A third party?

Other weird things: apparently Jane's kidnapping in the snapchats just... never gets explained or referenced again? I went back to reread those, and they connected to Meat even more than I realized at first.   I guess Jane grew up to be... exactly what she was raised/groomed to be, which is *uncomfortable* but not particularly shocking.  I feel bad for people who were hoping for happier endings for the human kids, but I don't think I ever really expected Homestuck to serve up happy endings.  I don't buy that things in the snapchat were just thrown in at random, though.  Those elements were there for a reason, and arguing that everything in the snapchats were connected to the epilogues EXCEPT that one major extended plotline doesn't make sense.  Especially when it visually and narratively seems to be a direct link to the events of the Meat storyline. 

Also, where the fuck are the sprites?  We never see or hear from Jasprosesprite, Gcatavrosprite, or the Nannasprite(s?) again. I’m not sure anyone cares, but. Uh. Yeah.

I have other thoughts regarding the classpect-coded language that crops up pretty frequently in the epilogues, but I think I will devote a separate post to that, if I get around to it, given that this *is* at heart a classpecting blog.

So anyway, Meat ends, it's depressing and futile and grim, I get it. I don't like every element, but it hangs together as a story with a narrative, overall.

Then we get to Candy.

Hoo boy.

I’ll tackle that one next, but as it was considerably more upsetting for me to read, rereading it for fact-checks and commentary is going to be a lot harder for me.  I’ll get through it here sooner or later, though.

[chaoskirin]

Fanfic -- A Temporal Folly -- CHAPTER 5

Fandom: Queen Genre: Sci-fi/Horror Rating: R Chapter Title: Detached (Chapter Five) Word Count: 2265 (oops!) Chapter Summary: Same thing, with 100% more Roger! 

How we all mourn the broken Holding onto the slimmest ledge Our fingers slipping by the second Drawn to the inexorable truth That to change the fates of the never-ending masses Is to destroy the fabric that binds us all

2019

Roger crashed into his vanity, upended his chair, then fell to the floor. Winded, he fought against gravity to regain his feet, momentarily blanking on the logistics of up and down; in the end, he succeeded only in rolling onto his side.

What was he doing in his dressing room?

He was too fucking old for this shit!

Roger would admit that, unlike Brian (whose feet were firmly on good ol' Terra Firma), he often had his head in the clouds and had no qualms about breathing the vapors. So he wasn't surprised when his mind skipped past every logical explanation like dreams or hallucinations and went straight to alien abduction as an assured reality. It sure felt how he imagined an alien abduction would go, although the completely empty dressing room unnerved him a bit, and the blue light oozing out of the walls like a thoroughly squeezed snail was an odd touch. Had he acquired the good shit?

It said a lot about him that his second guess was "drugs," Roger supposed.

"Right. Up on the feet then," he told himself. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he reintroduced himself to the concept of three dimensions and peeled himself off the floor. His joints popped and cracked in protest.

As he tried to regain his bearings, he squinted at the weird gecko-like beast, stuck by its little spade-toes up in the farthest corner of Roger's dressing room. As calmly as he accepted his alien abduction, he took this in stride, only partly because his very brain seemed to have short-circuited. The rest was because he kinda hoped he'd made first contact before his dear friend and space nerd, Brian May. Wouldn't that just rankle!

"Where are your eyes?" Roger inquired at the toxic blue creature. It grinned with a maw full of sharp, irritating teeth.

In answer, it shuffled toward him, hissing like a leaky tire. Alas, it seemed he'd have to fight the thing. So much for peaceful first contact! How could he possibly fight this cow-sized creature, though, with its lack of eyes and weird suction-cup toes and its feral, white-rimmed grin?

He did what any blue-blooded Brit would do. He bunched it square in the mouth.

The thing was fast. In the blink of an eye, it had Roger's arm crushed between its teeth. He tried to cry out, but the creature already had itself wrapped around him; consequently, the only sound he could produce was a less-than-intimidating squeak. Every time he gasped, the creature constricted tighter.

---

Witness. ---

1993

The alarm buzzed. John reached over and snoozed it.

Five minutes later, the radio started playing Sinatra, despite John ripping out the FM transmitter just the night before. Grabbing the entire clock-radio, he launched it across the hotel room, where it shattered against a mirror.

Then, for good measure, he sat up in bed and gave the lamp a good solid kick. He'd be billed for it, and probably even kicked out of the hotel. Maybe he'd sleep in a ditch tonight for the thrill of it. None of that mattered, though, since he'd wake up in the same bed, at the exact same time, annoyed once again by Come Fly With Me through a tinny, sub-standard speaker. He glanced at his watch.

"Three. Two. One." As he pointed at the door, somebody rapped on it and called "Room service!" "Fuck off!" John growled.

He'd seen Groundhog Day back in his own Theta-Universe just before traversing the portal. The coincidence wasn't lost on him. Who knew such a temporal anomaly wouldn't be caused by driving off a cliff, but by mucking about in the past!

The most annoying thing was that he couldn't write anything down, because everything would disappear when the day started over. Infuriating! He had so many questions, and limited memory with which to remember them, or their answers.

"What is this," he grumbled, sliding out of bed. "Sixty? Seventy? A thousand?"

Every morning, he made a tick on the wall. The next day, of course, it was gone.

It was at least sixty, though. He knew that. And in those sixty days, he'd pursued every opportunity to speak to Freddie, but this universe's version was reclusive and distrustful. Once, frustrated with the lack of positive response, John tried to drag him off so they could talk, and ultimately ended up in jail.

It didn't matter. By then, he knew he'd wake up the next morning safe in the hotel bedroom.

Today would be different, though, John mused as he brushed his teeth. Humming a cheerful ditty that was definitely not Sinatra, he pulled the hairdryer out of its wall holster and used it to smash the mirror. If his actions didn't matter, if everything would reset in 24 hours, why shouldn't he take out his frustrations on inanimate structures? He spit the toothpaste out in the middle of the floor. "It's a glitch," he told himself. John often spoke to himself now, since he had no friends in this universe. He technically didn't exist in it, which meant no one recognized him, which meant he had no friends. "We fucked up the code. It was too much. We shouldn't have--" Today would be different.

Over the past few weeks--relatively speaking--John worked on finding the key to fixing everything. By the very nature of time-space, the machine he and his other self built also had to exist in this world. He should have entered into the Iota-Universe at the machine's location, but the glitch interfered and spat him out elsewhere. After triangulating all possible points of interest, he found it in the basement of an abandoned school only a half mile away from the hotel. The proximity made sense. And if he was right, which he'd find out today, the location of the machine, the hotel, and Freddie would create a perfect line.

That revelation didn't matter much before, but now it made sense. It was the continuum trying to correct itself, pointing the way to solve the problem. If John could get Freddie to the machine, his presence would act as a battery, activating it and allowing everyone to go home. He had to. At this point, he teetered just on the verge of madness. Living the same day over and over couldn't have been healthy for anyone.

--- Today, he'd try a different tactic. Today... Today it would work.

It was sad in a way, how meeting up with Freddie had become routine. The first few times John saw he old friend, he couldn't even approach for the tears in his eyes. And Freddie looked so whole and healthy. Standing in the presence of Queen's legendary singer made John's heart soar!

But while this Freddie had similar mannerisms and a rather sizable ego, he was reclusive, bitter, and almost hopeless. In the rare occasion John managed to find the right combination of words and platitudes to get this version of Freddie to talk, every word dripped with regret and bile. After Queen failed, Freddie's life folded in on itself. He repressed his sexuality. Settled down with Mary. Lived miserably.

John had doubts about taking this Freddie back to the Theta-Universe, but he still waited in the same park every morning just to catch a glimpse of his old friend. Sometimes they'd talk. Sometimes they'd fight. Today, John intended to test his theory on the machine.

At eleven o'clock and four minutes, Freddie sauntered past the park fountain.

As casually as he could, John pushed himself off the bench, falling into step just behind Freddie. He tried his best to act as if he had somewhere to go and just happened to be traveling in the same direction.

Astute, though, Freddie glanced over his shoulder. "Are you following me, darling?"

Every day the same question.

"Yes, actually," John replied. Before Freddie could get angry, though, he regurgitated a bit of trivia Freddie gave him just a couple days prior: "I saw you at the Itherian last night. You sing, right? Was that you?"

Yesterday, the spiel was too desperate and overstated. Today, John reined in his anxiety and evened his tone.

It worked. Freddie's face lit up, every trace of doubt vanishing. "Hey, yeah! I don't remember seeing you there."  

Damn. A new variable. He could ruin the entire day if he answered wrong. Crossing his fingers in his pocket for luck, he tried, "Oh, I don't like to be around people. I kinda stay toward the back when I go to those things."

"There were only eight people there, dear," Freddie replied, arching an eyebrow.

"Eight too many," John muttered, trying his best to let his anxiety float to the surface.

"Oh, you've got it bad, haven't you? Poor dear. Well, did you like the set?"

If John continued along this conversational path, Freddie would ask which song John liked the best, and John had no answer for that. At that point, Freddie would see right through him and the day would be a wash. "Loved it," he said. And before Freddie could ask the wrong question, he quickly added, "I actually have a little place in the basement of an old school just down the block. I could use a regular. You want to see?"

Was that too creepy? It sounded too creepy. He'd have to work on his delivery for tomorrow.

To his surprise, though, Freddie said "Lead the way!"

---

"Interesting that you had to break the lock," Freddie grunted as John led him down the steps. Every one of them creaked underfoot with a squeal that sounded like each board was about to snap in half. Had they been that loud the other times John came down here? They must have been. He was just nervous and his senses were playing tricks on him.

"Ah, it's a work in progress," John said, whisking the dust-discolored sheet off the machine. His heart hammered as he turned to Freddie, who was staring at the contraption with a mix of disgust and curiosity.

"Is this what you intend to use for music?" Freddie asked. "Good God, is that a broken television set?"

"Actually, the truth is..." John fiddled with the dials, clicking the calibration from 6-2-5 to 6-2-6. It should have turned it on, which would give a heaping portion of credence to John's story. Shifting the sub-space translator node into the low-mid position, he said a quick prayer...

Please work. Please work. Dryly, Freddie scoffed, "Did you build this yourself?" as nothing at all occurred. "It's liable to belch dust before it creates music."

"I'm gonna explain, I promise. It's just that I'm from an alternate universe..." The truth slipped past his lips has he re-calibrated, trying 6-7-6 instead. Normally, that would be too high, especially with the translator node where it was. Maybe too high was just right for the Iota-Universe, though? "I was going to show you--hoping to take you back... There's this place where Queen made it, Freddie."

"Oh dear," Freddie drawled.

"Give me a minute," John snapped.

It had to work. It had to!

"How do you know about Queen?" Freddie asked. John briefly looked over his shoulder, to find Freddie peering down his nose. "I've not told anyone about the name. You've been breaking into my house. Looking at my sketches!"

The stray thought that this Freddie was also paranoid touched on John's thoughts as he tried to troubleshoot. "No, you must have told me--"

"I don't even know you!"

John sighed, resigning himself to another failure. He could try another approach tomorrow, of course. And the next day if he had to. And then the day after that. He started to wonder if perhaps he'd have to rebuild the machine! That'd give him an excuse to see if remaining awake for multiple days in a row would allow him to move past the same stretch of twenty-four hours, but was it worth the trouble?

He wasn't sure he liked this Freddie.

As John fiddled with the calibration, something slammed into the side of his head. The force caused him to spin around in a half circle and collapse onto the dead machine. As he lost consciousness, Freddie raised the two-by-four in his hands for another attack...

That was the first time John died.

Then his alarm buzzed.

"Ow," John grumbled. Sitting up and kicking off his sheets, he rubbed his unbruised temple, gritting his teeth. Though the pain was gone, the memory caused more than a couple tears.

He never bothered Freddie again.

---

2019

Roger could no longer struggle. Though his lungs reflexively tried to suck in just the barest hint of oxygen, he could no longer breathe. Though not one for giving up, he had to admit that this was over.

All he could think about was how wrong it felt to see that glimpse into John's mistake. How could he possibly have lived the same day over and over without going insane?

And Freddie...

That monster wasn't Freddie.

You wasted your time, Deaky, Roger lamented. You should have stayed.

You have witnessed,

the creature said, squeezing Roger tighter and tighter until his ribs cracked and snapped. Choking with pain, Roger's vision closed in until the lack of oxygen dragged him into a surprisingly peaceful demise.

[randomnumbers751650]

tl;dr: Padpa is not all the hot cake the other gems think they are (and they know very well that) and their relationship with Rutile is tragic as heck

Padparadscha is my favorite character in Houseki no Kuni. I just love them because of their kindness, their gentleness, their sincere desire to be a good elder sibling to the other gems. I see them not only that, but also as a personal role model. Like, when Rutile was blaming themself for not being able to fix Padpa, they just smiled to them and said “Isn’t my bad luck to blame?” They know that it’s nobody’s fault because they have their condition, one of the hardest lessons one can learn.

In canon, Padpa is seen as a (half-)living legend amongst the gems, a hero that is a great fighter and person. At first, they seem like the perfect gem, save for their condition, so what would be their weakness?

The answer I found: fear. Although Padpa doesn’t appear much, their presence does impact the story. They told Phos that, in their quest for knowledge, an unbridled truth will hurt and change things for the worst – and the example that Padpa used was that if they told the truth about how they felt to Rutile, they would crack them.

Here I can see Padpa’s kindness to be both a strength and a weakness: while they care deeply for Rutile, it’s this care that impedes them to tell them the truth, that they’d rather sleep forever and that Rutile should just give up and move on.

Now this is an example of showing: we know little about their backstory, only that they were partners in the past and that Rutile became a doctor in order to find a way to fix Padpa. It’s shown that Rutile mostly assumes the persona of a mad doctor who alters between “shit-eating” grin and “not this crap again” frown, but notice how they change when Padpa wakes up in ep. 10. They look concerned and even scared. And Padpa tries their best to not hurt them, even hiding the truth. HnK isn’t very fond of backstory (Sensei explaining the origins of the gems notwithstanding), preferring to show how gem’s past relationships works through dialogue and gestures (if it was a shonen, we’d have 10 chapters of backstory already).

But we can infer they were close in the past, very close. They had a friendship in the past, that may or may not romantic (I think it because of personal bias, you can ignore this). Now, for a parenthesis, the gems seem to understand romance, but their definition of romance seem to resemble more of a seven-years old, a closer affection or what Tvtropes would call Toyship (compare with Cairngorm/Aechmea, although you may discuss about its degree of toxicity, undoubtedly that must be the first time a gem is experience “grown up” romance (or teenage crush)).

The thing is that this definitely would be something overlooked by Adamant. In his innocent but misguided intent of keeping the gems innocent from civilization (a civilization he certainly saw destroying itself), Adamant must’ve never taught the gems how to deal with romantic feelings (plus, the fact he’s a robot doesn’t help), or dismissed them as most parents with young kids would, thinking that they’d forget it soon.

But in this direction their feelings changed. A line in chapter 66 indicates that Rutile was likely to be an angry hooligan and then they became a mad doctor. But why would they be a mad doctor while when Padpa was awaken? Being paired with one of the kindest gems might have mellowed Rutile out, to have them become less of a jerk.

And then Padpa’s geological narcolepsy starts to act. Rutile gets desperate with the fact their beloved partner becomes more and more ill, so they did the thing they thought it could make a difference: became a doctor. The first operations should’ve worked more but as the operations failed, Rutile became more desperate; every time Padpa woke up the smiles became rarer and rarer, giving way to concerned expressions. Nobody else could help them, and thus they dedicate themself to this task until they realized only them could and should restore Padpa. As their despair with each failed operation grew, so did their entitlement. Through the centuries, Rutile slowly became an yandere. They could not accept the fact their enemies did a job much better than they ever would (said enemies who enacted a gemnocide for petty reasons, a fact some parts of the fandom are keen to ignore) That’s why they broke down when Phos took Padpa to the Moon to the point of breaking Padpa again so they could do it themself.

And the sad thing was Padpa knew all this. They’re a very perceptive gem (they recognized which Amethyst was in the Moon). Every time they woke up, they saw Rutile changing a bit, becoming more and more different from the gem they once knew, to the point of not seeing the person they once cherished. They knew Rutile’s efforts would be doomed to failure, but they never had the courage to tell that to them. And by refusing to tell the truth, they made Rutile become like that. Imagine how different things would be if Padpa was frank towards their feelings to Rutile. There’d be a good chance of Rutile ignoring their words, but still it’d be something that would need to be said. And they shrierked from it.

They know it’s their fault that things escalated in chapter 70. Their mercury-covered expression was of regret, in chapter 71. One of HnK’s theme is not only the search for the truth, but also miscommunication sucks. We could also compare Padpa to Bort: if, somehow, Bort and Dia’s positions inverted, Bort being born with holes and Dia being the doctor, Bort wouldn’t hesitate to say “Your medical skills suck, let me sleep forever already!” – Bort has bad people skills but won’t hesitate to tell the truth for the other’s good, even if this hurt them, while Padpa has great people skills and doesn’t want to hurt them, even if it means hiding the truth.

Now let’s see what will happen, if I’m just putting my foot in my mouth with these words. Next chapter will focus on Padpa. Tragedy in relationships is a theme that permeates HnK and this is how I see with Padpa and Rutile.

[awed-frog]

Stuck in the Middle (with You)/Awesome Crowley

[For a meta about Reservoir Dogs and Tarantino’s use of gay subtext, click here.]

I don’t want to be the person who ruins everyone’s fun, so I’m saving my one big criticism of this episode for last. This meta is completely positive, even saccharine, until the very last paragraph. Also, I’m borrowing one of my favourite AO3 tags as a title because, let’s face it, Crowley was the real hero of this episode and where the action was, and that’s perfectly okay and long overdue. Crowley’s been around for years now, and he’s gone through huge bouts of character development, and yet we still know next to nothing about him and he’s often treated like an afterthought, both by our heroes and by the writers. This episode finally (finally!) corrected that, because no matter how intriguing and plain beautiful everyone was, Crowley was magnificent - as I fully expected him to be.

After all, they’re good - but he’s Crowley.

Like anyone with eyes, I loved everything about this episode, and especially how it was filmed. I have to say - this is the first episode in a long time that actually had me in tenterhooks about a possible character death, because you never know, right? Theoretically, Crowley could die, and so could Cas. Theoretically. And also the music, did I mention the music? I think that scene of Cas crawling away from Ramiel and the shot of Ramiel stabbing him - that’s just become my favourite Supernatural scene ever, bar none. It was so powerful and dramatic and visually magnificent and that damn music - wow. 

I adored that symbolism, because Cas’ been a Christ figure for a while now, and seeing him like that, on his back, defeated and stabbed by a lance - you can’t get more Golgotha than that. Beautiful stuff.

I also loved that this episode was, in a way - off-centre. Sam and Dean were there, of course, but the story was not focused around them. The real protagonist was the supernatural world itself - Cas, Crowley, Ramiel; even Lucifer, to me, was more present than he’s been in a while, what with this vague threat of his child hanging over the world, and him taunting Crowley and flashing his red eyes at this most undemonic demon in the very last scene. The truth is, I love everything about Sam and Dean, and that includes the incredibly talented actors who play them, but I feel the show could benefit greatly from approaching their story from a different perspective every once in a while. I’d love to know more about their childhood, for instance, or about this world of monsters and hunters around them; and a completely Outsider POV episode is, at this point, something I’d probably sell half my soul for.

Anyway - lately, this show reads like very good fanfiction, and considering how engaged, loving and talented this fandom is, this is high praise. I particularly appreciate the fact they’re going back to important plot points and filling them in with completely new details - after all, we’ve been wondering for years what’s up with demonic eyes, or how Crowley became king in the first place (or, at least, I know I did). This new class of demons appearing out of nowhere - creatures powerful enough to wield an archangel’s weapon - that’s incredible stuff. I’m guessing we’ll see more about them, and I can’t freaking wait.

So, yes - Ramiel was spot-on. Jerry Trimble managed just the right mixture of underwhelmingly normal and terrifyingly amoral - so much so I’m sort of sad we didn’t get to see more of this character, even if everything about him, including his death, was handled just right - there was no room for anything more.

My one slight criticism there would be the fizzling nature of Cas’ abilities. For instance, didn’t we establish that Cas can smell lies? So why couldn’t he guess Mary was hiding something? And what about demons’ true forms? I always assumed Cas could see that (was it ever stated in canon? it must have been), and I was therefore almost disappointed that Cas couldn’t recognize Ramiel for what he was. Maybe it can be explained away by him slowly becoming closer and closer to a human being - I don’t know. In any case, I’m truly appreciating how obsessed everyone seems to be with him lately. After years of taking angels for granted, we’ve got two characters in short succession fangirling over angels (in a creepy, murderous and definitely non-con way, but still) - and, yeah, I know that basically everyone spent the entirety of Supernatural pointing out how different and unique Cas is, and I’m grateful for that, but it’s also nice to get a reminder that angels are awesome (in the other sense of the word) in and of themselves.

(I’m still loving Mr Ketch, by the way. Aaaaaw.)

Let’s now come to our unsung hero: Mr Crowley.

Crowley was magnificent in all this. And we’ve now learned he never seriously planned to become King of Hell - my headcanon, which I’m considering confirmed, is that Crowley simply wants control. He’s been tortured for a century or more as some demon tore his human soul out of him, and he’s never putting himself in that position again, which is very sensible of him, and also very Scarlett O’Hara.

(Then again, he is his mother’s son.)

So, well, there he was, sort of loyal, licking the right boots, quietly ammassing a fortune in paintings and cursed objects and rumours and secrets on the side, when suddenly one of his craziest schemes actually works and Lucifer disappears and Ramiel doesn’t want the throne and Crowley realizes he’ll probably be safer sitting on it than he would be taking orders from some mindless, blood-thirsty underling who doesn’t know the first thing about governing a kingdom.

It breaks my heart, really.

And this is why I’m guessing, really, that the reason that demon was so gleeful about the possibility of killing Sam - I mean, sure, he’s Sam Winchester and all, but she had to know, because everyone does, that Sam and Dean are under Crowley’s protection. That no matter what he says, he considers them friends. And since he basically stole the throne from her (sort of), I’m thinking she was careless because this was a kill she was really relishing.

(Sigh.)

Also - look, as happy as I am with Cas finding his place - with his speech, with Dean’s soul-shattering Let’s go home, this dark side of the mirror is now hurting more than ever, because Crowley keeps risking everything so that Dean can live, and can keep choosing someone else over him. And I don’t think Dean is rude and obnoxious because he doesn’t notice - I think he’s rude and obnoxious because he does notice, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. Like Cas, Crowley sees right through him and loves him for who he is, and that’s something Dean just can’t accept.  

(“Your problem is that nobody hates you more than you hate yourself.”)

This doesn’t mean Crowley’s love isn’t skewered, borderline toxic and an enabling mess, but it’s still love, and it’s still directed at Dean’s true self, and it’s still - this is now definitely confirmed - completely selfless, like human love is supposed to be.

(Breaking the Lance of Michael to save Cas - that was -

Also: recognizing Dean’s impatience and anger for what they were, and choosing to do the right thing even against his own interests -

- because, of course, Dean’s got a history of saying the wrong thing when he can’t deal with reality and other people’s feelings. That We don’t have time for your - for you was Nobody cares you’re broken all over again, and Crowley already gave his answer to that when he pointed out the Winchesters - and especially Sam, of course - have got plenty of faults of their own: And yet, I endure.)

And maybe Lucifer’s still got it, or maybe he simply watches the show, because he knows exactly where it hurts: “Do you really think they care about you? I mean, think about it, Crowley. They kill your kind. And you know... you know...it's only a matter of time before they come for you.”

(What worries me the most about this statement is that there’s no traditional happy ending in sight for Crowley; there never was. The only question at this point is which way this is going to go. Will Dean be forced to kill Crowley? Will Crowley sacrifice himself for Dean? Or will he, finally, become human? After all, Lucifer’s right: no matter what Crowley does or doesn’t do - and saving Cas’ life by destroying the most powerful weapon left on Earth, that’s a big favour to pay back - as long as he’s a demon, the Winchesters will never fully trust him, or even accept him. But if he were to become human...

It’s a big gamble, sure. Then again, Crowley’s much less calculating than he’d like people to think.)

From a Destiel point of view, someone should probably look at that diner scene again and check how it was shot - because I’ve got this feeling that the first time, it was from Cas’ perspective, and we spent a lot of time learning about what Dean wants in his sexual partners - but the second time, we saw it from Mary’s perspective, which means we spent more time actually noticing the way Dean looked at Cas. Also hearing Dean describe Cas as ‘shy, but devastatingly handsome’. Mh.

Again, all the kudos to the title, which basically refers to everyone except Sam and Dean, because, as I said, this wasn’t about them and yay!

The weapons and the gadgets and the special effects! Heart-eyes and grabby hands over here. More, please.

(Though I’m slightly disappointed that the Lance didn’t break the shovel’s handle on impact, but whatever.)

Immortal creatures collecting paintings instead of repeating high school for all eternity - much love for that.

Crowley calling everyone out on their shit, including the screenwriters’ indulgence in silly rhymes - aaaaw. You do you, sweetheart.

(The fact Crowley was genuinely saddened by the prospect of Cas dying - *cries forever*.)

“I don’t have friends.”

Mary - Mary continues to be an interesting character and also someone I wouldn’t invite over for dinner, which is perfectly fine and much better than the alternative. Though I am slightly disappointed by the fact she didn’t even try to come clean about the Colt. Guess her brand of unhinged is the same as John’s, after all - birds of a feather and all that.

Finally: the big Destiel moment. Look, I have to say - I’m as excited as anyone that Cas was fully recognized as family (because, yeah, no matter what Dean said, this was like the first time they don’t leave Cas out somewhere to die?) and I’m ecstatic by this confirmation that Cas understands what love is and feels it himself -

- but one, I’m worried about the effect this will have on Dean and two, I’m getting really tired of the ambiguity.

Because, well - this is the first time Dean hears it flat-out: he changed Cas, he destroyed Cas in almost every way that matters, in fact, and Cas is grateful for it and considers him family. Will this lessen the guilt Dean’s been experiencing for years, or will it increase it? Knowing Dean, I’m not optimistic.

And as for the other thing - look, no way that I love you was a singular, and directed at Dean. I’m just thinking from a translator’s point of view here - if I had to dub or sub something like this in a language with normal pronouns, I’d never use a singular - not in a million years. Cas’ never said anything like this before, he wasn’t looking at anyone when he said it, the sentence was preceded and followed by plural yous, and imo the only reason they included it at all (instead of going directly from You’re my family - which was clearly a plural - to I love all of you) was the usual subtextual bs they’ve been having fun with for eight seasons. Because this episode, like so many other Supernatural episodes, could have been 10/10 TV instead of the 9.6 it got on IMDb if they’d only stopped being weird about this. Don’t get me wrong - I love the uncertainty and the drama and the UST and this classic I’m not good enough for you so I won’t even try trope - love them - but they could still make it textual without ruining any of that. One conversation between Sam and Mary would be plenty enough. Two sentences and a half, and it’s canon, and Dean and Cas are still oblivious, and we’ve still got everything - but BAM - it’s not possible or probable queerbaiting anymore, it’s not this thing that mostly makes me bitter and gives me anxiety - no, now it’s a beautiful love story and everything’s alright with the world. 

At this point, it’s incredible how little it would take, really. Or, well - not incredible: supernatural.

[violetsidraflower]

To Killing Stalking Fans: Why I Don’t Hate Ji Eun!

I wanted to share this post I wrote on another blog with the Tumblr fandom. I hope you Killing Stalker fans love it.

Something that I'm noticing that has been happening to this fandom and this Amino is the hate directed at the current female lead of the story, Ji Eun. Their are some calling her a tramp, some who hate her behavior towards Bum, and others who find her cute. I'm not gonna tell anyone how they should feel about a character however she’s just a small detail in the big picture of this horrible story.  She is a plot device.

These characters who make brief appearances in the story whose purposes are to purely drive the plot, maintain the stories flow, or resolve situations within it.

These characters are amazingly used by the mangaka but also service a secondary purpose to our favorite (jerk off) Sangwoo.

The Mad Scientist

Another mangaka whose work I admire is One the brilliant mind behind the uber popular web comic series, One Punch Man. In one of the chapter that revolves around the backstory of a brilliant scientist from a young age he views everyone else as a weak minded fool. In his eyes they are black formless shadows that he can't comprehend at his high intelligence level.

In a similar way I feel like this is how Sang Woo sees people too. They are all a means to an end as well as a fun outlet for Sang Woo to happily take his torture out on.

What they feel, what they say, how they say it, doesn't matter. What matters is how they play off of our two crazy and dysfunctional boys Sang Woo and Bum. Because lets not forget they are who this story is really about.

After all everything that happens in this story is the direct results of one or both of their actions. The Robber (Ch 9) and the Singer (Ch. 15-17) are two people who I'll be discussing.

The Robber

"The Robber" is the glasses wearing old man who is killed in Chapter 9. After almost cutting the flesh off of Bums face Sang Woo brings home a confused and frightened man who made the mistake of trying to force himself on Sang Woo. Woo forces him and Bum to play a game that puts their lives on the line.

The scene in itself is a game. Its the 'what reactions can I get out of Bum' game. The old man is a pawn. He is used to put Bum under stress. Its sad how effective it is, "Would Sang Woo replace me for him?" and "Sang Woo wants me, why else would he help me win". From Sangwoo dictating the rules of the game to sitting in a high position observing the game he is in control the whole time. He leads Bum to a loss just so he could terrify him with the idea of dying. There is glee and amusement that Bum actually thought he would be killed. Like the idea is silly. All of this is fun and a way to share something special with him, killing.

Sang Woo makes it very clear that he doesn’t give a damn about the Robber's life or history. All he cares about is that the Robber plays the role he is supposed to play and once his usefulness is over to promptly die like he was suppose to.

The Singer "Ji Eun"

It is deja vu watching that girl crush on Sang Woo. I feel sorry for her because she has no idea that she's trying to keep the attention of a poisonous viper.

Its hard to tell if he's using to maintain his image handsome college boy image but it is clear that Sang Woo doesn’t like Ji.

But her propose is realized in here unattractive interactive with Bum. Up until this point she and the group of friends are an inspector of how well Woo hides his insanity. Jin becomes another device to keeping up appearances but now has a use in his never ending delight in mentally torturing Bum.

He is fully aware of Ji Eun’s feelings and Bum’s feelings of her. Bum questioned his relationship with her (Did you sleep with her?) literally a chapter ago. But in perfect psychopath fashion he uses this knowledge in his new game.

This look has is get to be Woo's filthiest most excitement face yet. He knows what he is going to do to Bum and is throbbing with barely contained glee. Sang Woo puts Bum in a position to see something that he knows is going to destroy Bum. Due tot the chapter ending in a cliffhanger we dont know how Bum will respond to this but it will play into the Sang Woo’s game in some way.

All we do know is that Sang Woo is.. A DISGUSTING PIECE OF TOXIC WASTE GARBAGE!!!

(Sigh) Sorry. Still emotional about chapter 17

Once I get past my blinding rage I personally don't feel either way about Ji Eun. Because this story isn't about them. Where my rage goes is to Sang Woo and my sadness to Bum.

[the-fallen-blue]

Manpain isn't *just* about whose suffering is centered (ie, the male protag rather than the victimized love interest/child, or other characters who share the same loss). It's also, perhaps even primarily, about the way that pain is *expressed.* Manpain isn't any given man who is in pain because of a loss, it is specifically a man whose pain is *toxic.* A man who says "no one else can possibly understand what I'm feeling so no one will be allowed to talk to me about it or try to help." A man who says "my suffering is more central and important than anyone else's, even other victims." A man who says "the only solution to my suffering is repressing it into something Manly like Work or Drink or especially Violence." A man who takes his pain and directs it against his allies, treating them incredibly badly. And then ALL of this being excused by the narrative because he's *hurting* don't you see, and you can't hold his actions against him, you can't expect him to try to process any of this in a healthy or appropriate way because that wouldn't be ~masculine~ or ~heroic~ enough. It's MANpain for the same reason it's MANsplaining; it's an ordinary neutral thing *made* bad once prismed through toxic masculinity. That it shouldn't normally be bad for a man to be empathetic or in pain is actually really core to the criticism, and saying a dude is shitty because manpain is not saying he's bad for hurting, it's saying his response to pain should not be "become a shitty person."

Now I can't speak to the Flarrowverse or Walking Dead stuff and I'm not going to sit here and pretend that fandom isn't chock full of misogyny, so I'm 100% willing to believe that warping the definition for the sake of (male) fan faves is thing that is happening there. But as a great fan of heist stories I can assure you that Nate Ford's pain is damn well as toxic as shit. He is not even slightly interested in a healthy solution to his problems. He repeatedly rejects the idea that Sophie or the others have any wisdom to offer him in coping or any ability to help him. He gets his team in serious trouble multiple times because he refuses to take responsibility for his bad coping mechanisms. He is absolutely a paragon of manpain, even up to the point of destroying his marriage in the name of having a ~deeper insight~ into his son's death than his wife who suffered the exact same loss, which he wasn't willing to share with her.

Of course, the show itself doesn't justify Nate the way you expect from a normal manpain narrative. It's always clear that he's being a damaged jackass, we're not supposed to think his bad behavior is okay, the other characters push back semi-successfully against his bullshit, and the whole thrust of his arc over the course of the show is his stumbling attempts to find a less toxic way to be. He's certainly no Batman, not even close.

But even if we're not being asked to *excuse* Nate's actions, we're still being asked to embrace yet another protagonist who habitually *takes* those actions for multiple seasons to no significant consequence, and if you're just really fucking over the whole manpain experience where (especially white) male leads get to behave badly forever because they're sad and the audience is supposed to just blithely stan them anyway, you're probably still going to call him out for it in annoyed online rants, and imo frankly that's perfectly fair.

I managed to stumble onto a Leverage post about Nate Ford that said “enough with the manpain.”

And honestly, can we just retire that phrase?

The idea behind the term “manpain” as I recall, was that it was supposed to specifically address times when something traumatic would happen to a female character but it would be explored solely in the context of a male character.

But instead, fans have turned around to basically mean “anytime a show/book/movie focuses on the emotional pain and trauma of a male character that isn’t one of the fandom favorites.”

Nate Ford lost a child, and this event was the catalyst that led to the complete destruction of his former life.  And y’know, leads into the entire premise of the show.  Yeah, he’s old.  And an asshole.  But that pain is pretty fucking real.

Rip Hunter got something similar, of course.  And it was particularly notable that fans would write pages upon pages about Mick’s grief for Leonard Snart, but would dismiss the man who cradled his son’s corpse in his arms for “manpain”.

Honestly, even in fandoms where the “manpain” comes up in its original context, I find it tends to roll back on the female characters as much as the male characters.

I remember it coming up in Grimm fandom a lot.  “Juliette’s lost her memory but the show is focused entirely on Nick’s manpain.”  And some of that was legitimate complaint from Juliette fans who felt like she was getting the shaft because of the uneven character focus, which, is a valid complaint, definitely.

But a lot of it came from people who disliked Juliette.  Who would go on and on about the show’s focus on Nick’s “manpain” and then say “Nick should feel guilty for what happened to Monroe/Renard/other character of choice.”

I think we’ve seen examples of this in other fandoms too.  “Why is Michonne’s grief all about Rick?” vs. “Why isn’t Rick paying attention to Daryl’s pain!!”  “Why is the Eddie situation all about Barry instead of Iris?” vs. “Look at how bad Barry feels for Caitlin in THIS situation <3″  Basically, many fans are fine with “manpain” as long as it involves the characters that THEY like better.

It starts to become obvious that the issue isn’t really that the female character’s pain and trauma is being addressed through the lens of the male character with her, it’s that the female character’s pain and trauma matters enough to the male character that he actually cares.  It’s that the female character’s pain and trauma matters at all.  

Essentially, we’re looking at something designed for feminist narrative critique being co-opted as a tool for misogyny.

Ultimately, the problem with “manpain” as a term, in my opinion, is that it’s misaimed.  It’s basically used to dismiss and belittle a male character’s genuine emotional reaction, when that’s not the real issue.  

Nate Ford lost a child.  Rip Hunter lost his family.  Barry Allen lost his parents.  These are devastating things that happen to real people and we should perhaps consider what our dismissive attitude toward fictional characters’ grief says to real people who suffer similarly.  Calling it “manpain” simply gives us an excuse not to give any sympathy or compassion in a situation that absolutely warrants it.

This is a problem even when we’re talking about a legitimate use of the term, like the Nick and Juliette situation.  “Manpain” makes it sound like the fact that Nick has emotions about the situation is the problem.  But that’s not the issue.  Of COURSE Nick is going to be horrified, guilty, worried, angry at the circumstances, hurt, and lonely as a result of what’s happening to her and the fact that he can’t be with her.  Only a real jerk wouldn’t be.

If Nick wasn’t suffering somehow over the situation, we’d be led to conclude that Juliette isn’t important to him, and would thus be another way for fans to dismiss her.

The answer would have been to give Juliette’s pain and trauma more direct focus, not to dismiss Nick’s entirely.

“Manpain” started as a term for narrative criticism but it’s turned into an excuse for fans to show their complete lack of compassion  Let’s retire it.