#That was 100% about the discourse

[parcferm3]

I feel the F1 powers That Be brewing Esteban Ocon drama on this extremely average Thursday afternoon

[quillthrillswriting]

i'm sorry, but the atla fandom is the only place where i've ever seen people unironically use a 12 year old telling his friend that killing someone out of grief is maybe a rash decision and not healthy to argue that that same 12 year old is being controlling and is an unhealthy partner

you guys know that murder is like....a bad thing....right? especially for a 14 year old? you guys know that revenge murder isn't a healthy strategy? you guys know that anyone who would encourage that is probably actually the unhealthy one in that scenario...right??

[tumblezwei]

You know, when it comes to the whole debacle over the amount of mlm fanfic vs wlw fanfic, sometimes I'm like "maybe we are the problem. Maybe people saying g we should just create more instead of complaining have a point."

And then I come across someone saying, unironically, "men are just more interesting." Just. Outright. And it provides me a nice reminder that no, I and others like me are not the problem.

[azure-clockwork]

I love three houses discourse because I'm pretty sure everyone just picks their route based on which house leader they're the most gay for and then tries to defend their pick by pointing out the other sides's war crimes via twitter memes. Reader, all four of them do substantial quantities of war crimes. So many. We're just here because the woman with Issues and a big fuck-off axe said so, and then we gotta justify everything she did in the name of dismantling the class system. I mean, I'm here for that, but you could also try justifying Charm Man uses poison and perfidy to try to stop racism, A Sad Little Meow Meow gives no quarter instead of doing therapy, or the Thicc Pope tries to bring back her mom via human experimentation, depending on your tastes

[polyamorousmood]

Funnist part of anon hate is that everyone sending it seems to have assumed I'm a neglected woman. I can only assume it comes from me talking about emotional needs being met and the underlying assumption men have no needs except sex

[caeslxys]

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but it feels relevant again in light of the most recent episode. Something that’s really fascinating to me about Orym’s grief in comparison to the rest of the hells’ grief is that his is the youngest/most fresh and because of that tends to be the most volatile when it is triggered (aside from FCG, who was two and obviously The Most volatile when triggered.)

As in: prior to the attack on Zephrah, Orym was leading a normal, happy, casual life! with family who loved him and still do! Grief was something that was inflicted upon him via Ludinus’ machinations, whereas with characters like Imogen or Ashton, grief has been the background tapestry of their entire lives. And I think that shows in how the rest of them are largely able to, if not see past completely (Imogen/Laudna/Chetney) then at least temper/direct their vitriol or grief (Ashton/Fearne/Chetney again) to where it is most effective. (There is a glaring reason, for example, that Imogen scolded Orym for the way he reacted to Liliana and not Ashton. Because Ashton’s anger was directed in a way that was ultimately protective of Imogen—most effective—and Orym’s was founded solely in his personal grief.)

He wants Imogen to have her mom and he wants Lilliana to be salvageable for Imogen because he loves Imogen. But his love for the people in his present actively and consistently tend to conflict with the love he has for the people in his past. They are in a constant battle and Orym—he cannot fathom losing either of them.

(Or, to that point, recognize that allowing empathy to take root in him for the enemy isn't losing one of them.)

It is deeply poignant, then, that Orym’s grief is symbolized by both a sword and shield. It is something he wields as a blade when he feels his philosophy being threatened by certain conversational threads (as he believes it is one of the only things he has left of Will and Derrig, and is therefore desperately clinging onto with both bloody hands even if it makes him, occasionally, a hypocrite), but also something he can use in defense of the people he presently loves—if that provocative, blade-grief side of him does not push them—or himself—away first.

(it won’t—he is as loved by the hells as he loves them. he just needs to—as laudna so beautifully said—say and hear it more often.)

[bixels]

So i have a small nicpic i wanted to share with you about your interpretation of spike in the au and i want to make two things clear before i talk

1) i havent watch the series for a little while as of now so i might be misnterpreting a aspect of this chatacter that might have never been there and only apeared in fan content and personal interpretation (since that whats been keeping me on the fandom)

2) this is not a big problem about the au i matured enough to not get angry at a interpretation of a fictional charater

Now here i go

I feel spike being the same race as the rest of his familie makes him lose a part of his character that might have not been central but was still something interesting about him and is the idea of not mayhering how diferent he looked from his adoptive family (and his cominty as a whole) he was he was still seen as part of it

Again this isnt a big problem with the au as a whole its just a small nicpic that i have about the au and its not going to make me hate the au

This was just my opinion that i wanted to share and im interested to know your opinion about what i said

I understand this criticism and agree that having Simon/Spike be a different race than Thea could speak to their relationship in the original show.

My reasoning for designing them both to be African American is this. I believe Simon's adoption is enough to explore the feelings of separation and exclusion he may have with Thea and her family. The original show doesn't bring up Twilight and Spike's racial differences much because they originally didn't consider Spike to be a part of Twilight's family. As far as I know, there's no moment where someone says, "Wow! You're telling me you're related to Twilight Sparkle? But you look nothing alike!" because Spike was more so Twilights... familiar than anything.

Later episodes that explore their familial dynamic poses the conflict through Spike's adoption. There's one episode where Spike's "biological father" returns, and Spike accuses Twilight of not being his real family, which breaks her heart. There's another that delves deep into Spike's feelings of exclusion from Twilight and Shining Armor's siblinghood. Basically, in discussions of family dynamics, the show places more emphasis on Spike's identity as an adopted sibling rather than a dragon.

I really do believe a multiracial family would be good representation, but the racial dynamics would not be something I'd be interested in getting into. That's not to say I find real multiracial families problematic or uninteresting or unappealing or unimportant. I just wouldn't be interested in having to explain in-text that Simon (non-black) and Thea (black) are related over and over; it would grow tedious. It adds an extra level of writing complication and opens up racial discourse (discourse that I feel is unrelated to their relationship in the original show) that I don't want to concern myself with, especially because I have no experience in navigating such discourse.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

How to Write Disability: SPOP vs ATLA

(TW: ableism)

(before i start talking about this, i have to tell you that i am not physically disabled so my observations may not be a 100% correct. i'm only writing this post in relation to my experience with autism. if you feel like something i've said is inaccurate or insensitive, please feel free to let me know!)

so the two characters i wanted to talk about, in reference to writing disabled/neurodivergent characters, is Entrapta from SPOP and Toph from ATLA.

Entrapta is an autistic woman who grew up in solitude, only surrounded by robots. as a result, she is desperate for human etherian connection while at the same time, struggling with social interactions because of her autism.

she was pretty heavily autistic-coded, even before the writers confirmed that she was canonically autistic; she has a hyperfixation on tech and machinery, she is shown to stim a lot, she has a preference for tiny food (likely a sensory issue) and she is not good at reading social cues or communicating in a way that neurotypical people would understand. she is also an extremely intelligent and intuitive person who is not only good at handling tech but also shows love and affection towards people in her own way.

Toph is a character from ATLA, who was born blind. not completely unlike Entrapta, Toph was also raised in solitude, although she had her parents and servants to look after her.

her parents were convinced that Toph was incapable of being independent, because of her blindness, and were unwilling to look past her disability and treat her as a person. as a result, Toph is extremely rebellious and stubborn. she is an incredibly capable individual who learned how to navigate her way through earthbending. however, she still faces difficulties due to her disability and has to rely on her friends every once in a while.

the trope that these two shows share in relation to their disabled characters is the humor. there are jokes made about Entrapta's and Toph's disability in both shows. however, the key element that differentiates these jokes is the target.

Toph was never the butt of a joke in ATLA. in fact, she was the one making jokes about her disability 90% of the time. Toph was comfortable enough with her blindness that she didn't mind joking about it or even pranking the others sometimes.

in fact, one of the running gags in the series is that the other characters forget that Toph is blind because of how insanely capable she is.

Toph is never the butt of the joke, she's the one making fun of the others for forgetting about her disability. and it's all done in good faith.

and whenever someone is being ableist towards Toph, it's taken seriously. it's not played off as a joke and the narrative doesn't act like people mistreating Toph is this funny gag that everyone should laugh at.

now let's come to Entrapta. there are “jokes” in the show made about her disability as well, except these jokes are often made at her expense.

one of the most problematic parts of the show concerning Entrapta is the way Perfuma leashes her TWICE, because she was worried that Entrapta would get distracted and leave the group. so instead of holding Entrapta's hand or something like a normal person would, Perfuma decides that the best way to tackle this situation is to treat Entrapta like an animal and put her on a leash.

this is shown as a joke and is never addressed seriously. the show writers think that Entrapta being dehumanized and infantilized is supposed to be funny and quirky. Entrapta never gets to confront Perfuma about this or gets any kind of closure.

this was the main example of ableism in the show but there are also other minor scenes where we see characters treat her in a way that other characters aren't treated.

examples being Catra using Entrapta's trauma and loneliness to manipulate her, and Mermista literally yanking on Entrapta's hair and yelling at her, because she couldn't understand social cues.

there are also multiple examples of what i'd like to call the “translate nerd language” trope, where one of the other characters get irritated at Entrapta for using technical terms while speaking, and she has to dumb it down for them.

there's a way to write disabled characters and while Entrapta was a very relatable and sympathetic character, the ableism towards her is never addressed. the princesses are never called out on their actions, while Catra gets off scot-free after a vague apology.

when ableism was portrayed in ATLA, it was always taken seriously. Toph was allowed to leave her toxic parents and find people who accepted her for who she is, she was allowed to prove people wrong and be a powerful character in her own right. meanwhile, Entrapta was forced to be friends with the people who mistreated her and she was only kept around because she was useful.

[batsplat]

pecco rant please please

*spins wheel on possible topics* absurdly underrated but in a dumb way. you'd think you can stumble your way into two premier class titles. I don't care he's on the best bike - let's be honest, how often this century have the title winners not been on the best bike? 2004 and to a lesser extent 2005 you can say clearly weaker bike, 2007 late 2010s 2021 there's a clear enough disparity with anyone else riding the bike that you can say clearly the rider is making the difference/it's an unrideable wreck one guy is making respectable, then there's a few seasons where it's at least very close whose machinery is best or they're fighting with people on equal equipment, which pecco has done! but generally speaking, good/promising riders end up on good bikes and then they win. that's how the game works!

the thing about 2022 is that it had such a massive mid-season swing that overhauling a ninety something point margin cannot come down to any single factor. is it fair to say fabio lost that title? on balance, it's a bit harsh - yes, there were a few too many errors post-sachsenring, yes, some were driven by desperation, but also you can't really expect anyone to ride a flawless season. but pecco did win that title as much as yamaha lost it. I don't care if you're riding a literal rocketship with two wheels, you can't win four races in a row if you're not extremely good at what you do! if we're saying that title was worth less because the yamaha turned to shit in the second half of the season, then let's keep going. let's put an asterisk next to 2013 because jorge and dani both got injured (let's not even get into the 'if marc hadn't been injured' asterisks because that's where you get into truly silly territory). is 2006 not a legit title because of all the bad luck valentino faced that year? let's say all titles between 2007 to 2015 were worth less because at any one time only 4-6 bikes had a realistic chance of winning races. throw out any title before 2009 because they were constantly fucking about with the tyres and there wasn't a level playing field. if you're motivated enough, you can play this game with basically anything, but it's dumb and pointless because that's not how sports works! you can only win against whoever you're facing. it has always been thus and it will always be thus

it's narratively fun and juicy that pecco has these insecurities himself - but within the context of everyone else doing discourse over it, the whole thing is massively overblown! linked to some of the worst sports discourse about how much people love to disparage late bloomers, because they need every single successful athlete to fit the same mould of the ultra-talented wunderkind, apparently. it's more interesting when it's not always the most 'talented' (whatever tf that means), naturally gifted, *fast the second he touches a bike* bloke who wins. sometimes they have to work hard for it, sometimes they have to improve themselves year on year and be smart about how they do it, sometimes they have to be in the right place and right time, sometimes they have to be very lucky. sports is all about competition, and competition is all about contrast. it's a contrast that can be generated in a whole lot of ways, and in fairness to motogp they have come up with a bunch of interesting narratively tense contests that don't rely on a massive fundamental 'talent' differential - but at the end of the day, that's one of the best ones you can have! the more ways you can have to win in any given sport, the better, both in the literal sense of how you go about the actual process of winning and how you even become a winner. none of this means that pecco isn't very very good, it means he got there in a different way than every other multiple champ this century has. it fundamentally flattens the sport if you want every top-level competitor to be an alien-level talent... one of the best things about this current era is that it has given us something new and exciting in that regard, where you well and truly believe some very different blokes might have what it takes to eventually be champion

anyway, pecco is absurdly adept at digging himself into holes and absurdly adept at digging himself out of them. he's one of the worst frontrunners imaginable in every sense, biologically incapable of dominating without at least a perpetual hint of jeopardy, both in the context of a race and a season. but when his back is against the wall, somehow he keeps finding performances you never imagined he was capable of. his mixed up and slightly odd skillset, his strengths and weaknesses, how he's better and worse than he has any right to be... all of it lends itself to perpetual momentum shifts and thrilling seasons - because you never quite know what you're going to get. love him or hate him, he's a gift to the overall competitive landscape! god knows the racing hasn't been much to write home about these last few years (though, yes, we did have a good little run this season), but somehow he's managed to get himself involved in two out of the six title deciders this century back-to-back. is that not the dream for the viewer, to have a bloke at the top of the sport with a little self-combust chip in his head every time he builds too much of an advantage? build a hundred of those guys! throw a marc marquez at him and see what he does! I can't wait to see what he'll come up with next

[statementlou]

forgive me if this is too serious for an anon ask.. feel free to ignore it..

but this week shook me in ways i didnt see coming. i wasnt a one direction fan growing up.. tbh im still not, i listen to only a few songs. im same age as louis. so, i found one direction through him.

i have great affection for all of the boys though. and even in my short time in fandom, i've always been surprised and saddened by the bullying liam has gotten.. he just always seemed like a good person with really poor communication skills. to understand his point, you had to give him some space and context.

but this year has been a constant worried watch over liam. it was so plain things were desperate.

stan twitter got to me so bad that i left twitter the day louis' tour ended. so i was very peripherally aware of his recent harassment, but i did worry.

and now the unimaginable has happened, i am just at loss. not just in the sense of how to make sense of this loss, but also the complete lack of empathy for him still? even for other boys' fans.?? after they've seen how all of the boys' are hurting?

and just in the bigger picture.. how is this real? what loving god/higher power/whatver has allowed this to be the state of the world? he was so kind, so generous, just a boy. JUST A BOY. just trying to find a place to fit and feel safe. why was he dealt such cruelty? just while he was pursuing something he loved? something he was gifted with? in life and in death?

im just at loss. heartbreak doesnt even begin to cover it.

for me I've felt it was a constant worried watch over Liam for many years now, but other than that, yeah. It's hard to feel hope or faith in the face of so much senseless cruelty and pointless loss; all I can say is I would hope the millions of people who are shocked and saddened by this take away something lasting both about the fact that there are real people on the other side of the computer screen and cruelty has a real impact, and that addiction can afflict anyone. Nothing can make this other than tragic and regrettable forever; but I would love to see the amazing power of fandom mobilized to support programs for addicts and to fight stereotyping and dismissing of people who use drugs in Liam's name. To see people use this as a realization to really understand that it wasn't strange or exceptional that someone talented and worthwhile could succumb to addiction and ultimately die of it, but rather a plague that our society is allowing to run unchecked because of stigma. IDK, maybe I'm just grasping at straws trying to find something remotely positive that could come out of this situation but what else can you do? It's just so sad.

[resdayn]

"headcanoning mizu as transmasc is racist because mizu is half japanese" is SO disingenuous

you guys know there are transmasc japanese people right? there are transmasc people who are mixed race? is them existing also racist? should transmascs only be allowed to see similarities to their gender in white people?

[the-crimson]

Im not gonna make any judgments on q!Forever for what he said earlier because it was an excellent rp choice that just makes him more interesting - and I don’t know enough about his character to give any insightful analysis- but you cannot blame q!bbh for any of that.

Bbh didn’t “trap” Forever with this. Bbh didn’t make Forever do anything. Forever chose to lie to bbh about his missing son to try and get bbh to confess to a crime. If forever had done this to any other parent, they would be equally pissed. It was entirely Forever’s choice. Don’t try to take away Forever’s agency by saying he fell into bbh’s trap because this was entirely Forever’s doing.

Forever chose to cross that line and it was an awesome character choice. You are making him less interesting by acting like bbh’s reaction isn’t deserved. This is probably one of the few times when bbh’s distrust of Forever is 100% warranted.

How he worded it wasn’t ideal but how he worded it doesn’t even matter. He chose to use Dapper as a bargaining chip. Any of the parents would be rightfully furious if Forever did that to them with their kids.

Forever isn’t an uwu innocent victim and neither is bbh. They are both flawed broken people that can’t help but hurt each other (and bbh is hurting everyone (including himself) intentionally rn not just Forever). These two are doomed to always drag each other down and that’s been the nature of their relationship for months and I doubt that will ever change.

Bbh has burned a majority of the bridge between them in his quest for self destruction to find the eggs but Forever just knocked out one of the last load bearing pillars and the bridge is even closer to collapse.

[fadejumper]

I feel like soooo much character discourse nowadays boils down to people thinking either “this blorbo is perfect and can do no wrong” or “this blorbo is 100% evil and irredeemable” — interesting characters aren’t that extreme, they’re somewhere in between!! you can love a character while also seeing their flaws, and in fact a lot of my favorite characters are my favorite because of their flaws. it makes them interesting and complex! seeing them grow as a person makes for a great character arc, or hell, even seeing them get worse makes for a great character arc. you gotta have room for them to move in either direction, saying they’re 100% good or 100% evil is boring!

anyway this post is about solas dragon age but really can apply to any fandom lol

[tevanbuckley]

last thing I’ll say about the opener, do i get why they focused on athena/angela, obviously, she’s a massive pull for the show!

however, they absolutely could’ve told a version of this sl that still kept athena at the emotional core, but that made better use of the rest of the cast. they struck that balance with the cruise ship and imo they’re stronger episodes for it.

and that’s fine! i can live with not thinking every episode is a 10/10 banger, and i don’t think anyone needs to rationalise away their disappointment by convincing themselves it was secretly the best choice because of x,y or z.

[ingravinoveritas]

(And hopefully each other soon in GO season 2...)

[puhpandas]

This might come off as controversial, but Steel Wool is not immune to criticism. I don’t like how Steel Wool is treating Gregory for numerous reasons, but them setting him up to be a bad person feels wrong when no other child character is treated this way. They don’t want to acknowledge him as a victim and like okay, we get it, we hardly see his trauma, but hello? Is he not still a child? How is he any different from other kid protagonists that wanted to live in this franchise?

There’s a higher standard for the games sure, but it’s weird to me that background book characters get treated way better. They don’t want him to be exactly like Cassie, which understandable, but we’ve already seen few Cassie characteristics from him? To ignore that is ignoring a big part of his character. Why would he do anything in the story then if he was just as bad and destructive as they portray him as? He still needs motives, even if they want to strip him of any characterization so we never feel bad for him. They’re actively refusing giving him positive attributes because they’d hate it if he started challenging other characters/fans favs, but that’s what makes a good story compelling. It feels like they’re taking their anger out on him through their writing if that makes sense?

I’m a little concerned he’s gonna be the one who dropped the elevator because it feels true, otherwise why would RUIN be so full of blatant Gregory hate? They want us to hate him, that’s quite all there is to it.

them never showing us him as a character on a normal day and only when hes in a life or death situation making a split second decision that could decide the fate of himself and everyone he loves definitely has something to do with it. they only show his 'blunt' decisions to do something bad for a good reason, and not what he would be making that decision for. we never get to see him just be a normal kid, we never get to see him after sb deserving to have that happy ending, we only see the bad

but I dont feel like this is just. we hate this 12yo character and like the other one better so we're making him evil and shitting on him. they probably do want people to see the bad things he did for a reason that we dont know yet.

them framing Gregory as cutting the elevator whether he did it or not was very blatant in that decision. it feels like they want to give him a 'redemption arc' in the eyes of the fandom in come kind of way since people have disliked him from the very beginning. like they want us to see him do these bad things, and then maybe theyll actually show us that he didnt want to do these things later, and maybe things will be different.

like, I cant be the only one who feels like Gregory and the elevator is a setup for something. obviously to trap cassie down below, but in that case they didnt have to make Gregory be the one do drop it, just blatantly the mimic. they want us to believe this for a reason, and that would be to show us at the very least a reasoning later. I dont believe that reason is just "we fucking hate this child character and want everyone else to as well" that's just. crazy to me.

they wouldnt make Gregory do many kind things for other characters if they hated him. they wouldnt have had him comfort cassie on her birthday and make them canonically close friends if they wanted to make him genuinely heartless.

keep in mind that with SBs nuked characterization and no focus on Gregory since then, we havent even gotten to see his pov in a long time. just Cassies so far, and Cassies story is pretty much built off of perspective. the MIMIC is literally a tool to make characters perspectives about eachother change or distort because it would frame a character as doing something they didn't

mimic is literally going to be used to cause confusion and distrust within characters and it literally did that and accomplished that in ruin. cassie is going to believe Gregory cut the elevator whether he did it or not. and that's why I genuinely believe he didnt. why on earth would they introduce a character that's main purpose would be to do bad things to characters in another characters name to cause drama and then just. have the character have actually have done it lmao.

TLDR: I dont believe steel wool would steep as low as to make a 12yo kid trying to survive actually evil or even just hate him as the creators, and I also think the story of cassie and ruin and beyond is designed off of making Gregory look bad (the mimics purpose as a villain being causing uproar and doing bad things in another characters name to cause distrust from another) from Cassies perspective so he can appear later and disprove those beliefs as a sort of 'redemption arc' to cassie and the fans