#This is based off that one post I reblogged where the op was a shitty truscum

[legendfinder]

Being cisgender is great

Being cisgender is soooooo fun! It's like being pre-installed with HRT.... Now if only there was a way I could dual boot.

[iamanartichoke]

(This post was inspired by a recent post by @kayura-sanada​ that I was going to reblog, but my own addition became so long and, frankly, off-topic to the original post’s content that I figured it was fairer to create my own post. But theOP I’m referring to can be found here and is a good read.)

Okay, so: this is a wonderful analysis of Tony Stark, @kayura-sanada​, and I agree that it’s concerning seeing this written by a psychologist (although I think there has to be a little wiggle room in the fact that said psychologist is basing their diagnosis on their own interpretation, and - I would hope - it would probably change if Tony Stark were a real person who was their patient. I gotta hope that).

I agree with all of your overall points regarding Tony, but I wanted to reblog this specifically because this post is such a perfect example of a larger problem within fandom and fandom wank. The problem is that fictional characters can be interpreted any way you want, sure, but there’s a line between supporting your interpretation with evidence from the source, and supporting your interpretation with stuff you just kinda made up. There is a right and a wrong interpretation. 

Here’s what I saw happen with this post: your response to the OP is lengthy because it dissects the OP bit-by-bit; it responds to the claims made in those bits with evidence from the films that supports a completely opposite interpretation of the character. And the response you got largely ignores all of that evidence and analysis in favor of a surface-deep response about open interpretations and how it’s “all just fiction anyway.”

And I see the same pattern repeat itself over and over in fandom:

“Character A is Trait B and that’s why they do Actions C, D, and E.”

“Actually, character A is more Trait F, and examples of Trait F are shown in Action G, H, and I.”

“Okay, but when they do Action H, they’re responding to Event J, but with Actions C and E, they clearly demonstrate Trait B, along with Trait K and L.”

“Well, but, saying they are/have Trait K is kind of a reach, and when they did Action H it was out of character, because in the same situation in previous films, they responded to Event J in a different way. For example, .....” (long post)

“I’m not reading all of that, it’s open to interpretation, and it’s just fiction anyway.”

Later, rinse, repeat.

And it’s like, look, yes, you can interpret the characters however you want. Fandom is supposed to be a fun, engaging space where fans are inspired to create new works and discuss all aspects of the source. Headcanons exists because of open character interpretation. Shipping exists because of open character interpretation. Rarepairs and alternate universes and ‘there was only one bed!’ and lots of tropes exist because of open character interpretation. 

Without that open freedom to engage with the source/characters in whatever way makes you happy, fandom wouldn’t be what it is, and I would never want to discourage that. 

That all said, it is possible that someone’s interpretation is wrong. That the way they imagine the character or the way they’re interpreting the character’s words and actions is a contrast to what’s really supposed to be going on in the scene or with the overall arc. The wrongness can come from any number of things - interpreation being colored by personal experience, preferences, projection, whatever.

In the case above, the psychiatrist is viewing Tony Stark through a lens of what they already decided the character is: a case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. They took that lens and picked out (vague) examples of how the character portrays those traits.

This is fine. If that person wants to think Tony is a narcissist and that’s how they want to engage with the character and subsequent works (pretending that this was a meta post instead of a published article), then that’s their prerogative.

But upon closer analysis, the original interpretation kinda falls apart. The contrasting analysis takes a deeper look at the material and says, I don’t think what you’re saying is going on here is actually what’s going on here, and this is why.

But people don’t want to be told they’re wrong, especially in a fandom space, especially with something they hold dear to them (as interpretations can be intensely personal, and I know this). When the two interpretations clash, and one interpretation doesn’t really hold up to closer analysis, then suddenly, being critical of the source equates to disliking the source, and analysis is reduced to people just being negative and wanting to find things wrong with the source. Disagreeing with someone’s interpretation is taken as a personal attack. People get offended personally. The discussion devolves into ugly rhetoric, insults, or simply dismissiveness (”that’s nice but whatever,” “it’s just fiction,” etc).

And you might say, well, if you think someone’s interpretation is wrong, why are you trying to rain on their parade? Why are you trying to prove them wrong? Let people enjoy things! Let people fandom how they want! Let people write and create and be inspired in their own way!

To which I say, absolutely! Please, continue to enjoy the Thing and your interpretation of it. Continue to create through the lens of that interpretation. Create what makes you happy, fandom however you want to. I am a big proponent of “fandom and let fandom.” What other people like and dislike makes very little difference to me, and I’m certainly not under any illusion that everyone must see things the way that I see them or else they are Doing it Wrong. Nor do I take it personally if someone doesn’t agree with my take. 

None of that is my point. My point is that it becomes an issue that splinters and fractures fandom spaces when criticism and discussion are discouraged, when long analysis posts are mocked, when threads are hijacked, when it gets to a point where disagreeing with someone’s take on a Thing cancels them - to you - as a person. Because you miss out. You miss out on discussion, and on engaging with creative fanworks, and widening your fandom circle.

Instead, the circle just narrows, and there’s an underlying sense of hostility that colors every interaction you have. And it makes it not fun for anyone.

People need to be more open to the idea that there is, in fact, a right and a wrong side to most arguments. They need to be willing to defend their argument in a way that holds up and, if they don’t want to defend their interpretation, that’s fine - more power to you - but they need to then stop making fun of and being generally shitty to those who disagree.

People need to stop pretending that analysis and critical thinking don’t matter. They need to stop pretending that “fiction” is this vague concept that has no bearing on the real world and shouldn’t be taken seriously. Fiction shapes our world, and art imitates life. Being unable to think critically about fiction indicates a larger issue of being unable to think critically about the things that do matter in the real world, like science and poltiics. 

Just look at what this country has become. Each side believes it is the correct side, the “winning” side, but one of them is supported with verifiable facts and evidence and one isn’t, and when the one that isn’t is confronted with the fact that they are wrong, they either dismiss the argument entirely or go and find “alternative facts” from unreliable sources they can point to and say, see? A, B, C, D, and E may say I’m wrong, but F says I’m right, so fuck you.

I’m certainly not saying that fandom should be taken as seriously as politics, but I am saying that if people were more amenable to changing their minds or even just recognizing that criticism isn’t an attack and it’s not personal if someone dislikes a Thing that you feel passionate about - or vice versa - then maybe we’d have a better fandom space for all to enjoy. 

And I do try not to be a hypocrite. I am open to changing my mind on positions I’ve taken in fandom - if the analysis and the evidence convince me that there’s another way to look at it. If someone is telling me I’m wrong, and they tell me why it’s wrong (yes, in detail), then I’m more than happy to take a second look. Maybe it will change my mind; maybe it will simply be something I’m cognizant of while I continue to enjoy the material in the way that’s most fun for me. Either way, I’m not trying to hold fandom as a whole to any kind of standard I wouldn’t also expect myself to meet. 

That being said, this post is 90% me venting. Ironically, I don’t expect this to change anyone’s mind. I’m not saying there’s any one solution that will work for everybody or even that everyone sees a problem that needs solving. I’m just saying that I don’t enjoy fandom as much as I used to, and this particular pattern of "wank” (for lack of a better word) is the reason why. 

[bigskydreaming]

Also if people instinctively reaching for their “its just my interpretation” arguments as a rebuttal to that post about issue #416 could just not, I’d super appreciate it, thaaaaaanks.

See, the problem I have with that is like....no its not. Its really really not. If your fic or your meta is otherwise DIRECTLY referencing specific story beats of that specific ISSUE, like Dick not having talked to Bruce in over a year, or Dick not knowing Jason even existed until he saw it on the news, or Dick leaving Jason his phone number, or anything of the like.....it is not at all unreasonable for me to expect you to acknowledge the story beats of that very same issue that all of those things are written IN RESPONSE TO. 

You can yell at me about how the firing is just a retcon til the cows come home, but y’know what? It was a retcon that was reiterated IN THAT VERY SAME ISSUE. In it, Dick reiterated what the firing looked like from his perspective, how he waited around for two weeks for Bruce to change his mind before packing up and leaving with opportunities for Bruce to say something every step of the way....THAT is the SPECIFIC sequence of events that Dick’s anger about all of this comes from.

So its extremely disingenuous to try and pair that anger with the pre-Crisis ‘better version’ of events where Dick gives up being Robin all on his own and becomes Nightwing while still on good terms with Bruce...because that version of events has its OWN corresponding aftermath that was written in direct response to THOSE character choices. Like the aftermath where right after becoming Nightwing, Dick turns around and offers Robin to Jason himself, as he of course is already well acquainted with Jason by then. See, that’s kinda part of why Dick and Bruce are on such better terms in that version of events. It has a lot to do with Bruce not adopting a whole other son without so much as a phone call to let Dick know his family had expanded.

Now you can mix and match to your heart’s content, that has NEVER been in question. Especially since as so often said, its a fandom past time to take a match to canon and watch it burn. You don’t have to adhere to aaaaaanything you don’t want to.

BUT.

If you want to talk about INTERPRETING the canon? That is subject to a different set of standards. Because you’re acknowledging that the source material exists as a point of RELEVANCE to you.....and the fact is....the source material is the SAME for everyone discussing it. Now, people can and do have different interpretations of that same material, this is obviously true. But ACTUAL. GENUINE. DISCUSSION of it.....requires that all parties at least discuss those interpretations in good faith, and make an honest attempt to address the material as it is.

And that is not what happens in this fandom. Because you damn well KNOW that for all your talk of the firing just being a retcon......its still the specific version of events the “Dick being mad about Bruce giving Robin to Jason” thing is directly meant to reference and BUILD off of. Retcon or not, it is indisputably the FOUNDATION upon which the other character choices of that very same issue are built atop of.

Because there is another version of events, yes. The pre-Crisis version where Dick gives up Robin. But as I said, that version DOES NOT HAVE Dick angry or resentful....because a key component of it is that all three of them, Bruce, Dick and Jason, are already a family in spirit. There’s a true succession of Robin from Dick passing it down to Jason.

And a lot of you guys know this too. Especially the ones most likely to reach for that “let us have our interpretation!” arguments. Because the Dick Grayson corner of fandom has posted about it a LOT. In fact, we kinda churn out a crap ton of content for this fandom. Headcanons, ficlets, informative posts, etc. And there’s a very curious phenomenon that exists.....

Literally anything I or certain other DG fans post that is inclusive of the whole family, or does not reference any specific event that’s infamous within fandom for pitting Dick against another Batfam member in a ‘who was right, discuss” kinda way.....that tends to circulate WIDELY in fandom. We’re talking upwards of a thousand notes, regularly.

In comparison.....the informative posts that are chock full of panels pointing out how canon actually goes in these specific instances.....tend to top out at a couple hundred max. Its pretty much just fellow DG stans who reblog them. Everyone else, despite them going through the same initial routes of circulation....are very good at pretending they don’t see them.

Because see, misinformation - and make no mistake, that is what we’re talking about here - RELIES on a lack of like.....actual information provided to the contrary to thrive. 

For instance, if it were as common knowledge that in the pre-Crisis version of Dick becoming Nightwing, he makes Jason Robin himself, as it is say.....that the firing Dick as Robin story is ‘just a shitty retcon’......people might start to ask in greater numbers, like, okay, so why DON’T more people write Dick making Jason into Robin after giving it up himself? Why have Dick so bitter at Bruce and/or Jason, if in the only version where Dick gives up Robin, Dick passes it on himself? If you’re gonna go with the one, why not the other?

Because we all know damn well that’s not a difference in interpretation. That’s a conscious CHOICE to TRANSFORM the source material by stitching together two different sides of a cause and effect chasm. The events transpiring after Dick finds out Bruce made Jason Robin himself ARE NOT MEANT to reference the inciting event of Dick giving up Robin himself. You can make that happen, sure. But you have to MAKE it happen. There is no point in the comics where you can honestly, genuinely point to the comics and say this right here shows Dick being mad about this, where ‘this’ is Bruce giving Robin to Jason SPECIFICALLY after Dick gave Robin up, rather than being fired.

A choice has to be made there, for that to happen, if one has the ACTUAL information about how that really played out in the comics rather than just misinformation. And not everyone in fandom trusts everyone else to make the choices they would like them to make with the source material, do they?

After all, isn’t that the REAL root of all this?

See.....its no secret to any of us that nobody’s been all that happy with the actual comics aka source material in years. Meaning most of fandom, myself included, is here for meta and fics based on previously written comics, or our own adaptations of the material.

And fandom, being interactive, unlike canon.....is something that CAN be influenced by other fans.

So why don’t we all just stop fucking pretending that we’re not all trying to influence what the overarching fandom narratives are, shall we?

Oh, you can say this is just me projecting, but I’ve got plenty of instances of hypocrisy to point to that say otherwise. And THAT is the true source of my hostility in so many posts in this fandom.

Because its the very same people who loudly cry “let people have their headcanons” and “let people have their interpretations” and “stop trying to tell people there’s only one true version of canon to go off of” who NEVER. EVER. fail to show up on posts like that last one, the SECOND they start to circulate ‘too widely’ throughout fandom. There is ALWAYS someone waiting in the wings the minute a post like that starts to top a couple hundred notes, ready and raring to shoot it down with some kind of derailment or condescending reminders to everyone who might see it that ‘that’s just a bad retcon for people obsessed with misery porn’ or something like that.

And what exactly should we be calling that? When people show up every single time I make a post about the importance of Robin as a name to Dick, in order to make a big stink about how it being his mother’s name for him is just a retcon? Even though....did I say it wasn’t? Does it being a retcon mean it doesn’t exist? Am I not allowed MY interpretation of a story that very much does exist in canon, am I not allowed to reference other stories where that specific retcon is specifically linked to?

Or how about if I say, post a headcanon about Alfred getting snippy with Bruce about not reaching out to Dick after he leaves home, where within the headcanon itself I specifically reference a clear version of the story where Dick is fired and its eighteen months before he and Bruce speak again? Does this story not exist in canon? Am I not allowed to base stuff of it? It would seem not, given the way people jumped to derail that one by adding in additions about Dick being upset with Bruce about college, which is an entirely different continuity that in no way intersects with the specific events I reference, where they’re estranged for a clear reason that is directly raised within the headcanon itself. People even acknowledge “OP is entitled to any version of continuity they want” in that one, but are like....this one is wrong though, and true fans prefer the one that isn’t just misery porn meant to validate Dick’s teenage angst. With people all too happy to reblog that one while gleefully pointing out the tags that completely derail the post about a clear point in canon by making it entirely about another unrelated point in a different continuity in order to invalidate the initial headcanon or whatever.

Don’t even get me started on when we dare reference stories where Bruce is actually physically abusive to Dick, or when we link Dick’s actions in stories that acknowledge the emotional abuse or neglect of certain key moments in his life TO those inciting moments directly and say “hey its kinda shitty to act like Dick was just being a standoffish brat here when Dick’s attitude is actually directly based on the last time he and Bruce interacted being when Bruce told him to get out and leave his keys.” LOLOL nooooo, that’s not allowed to stand, because see, the ONLY possible reason we could have for even CONSIDERING those stories in character or in continuity, is because of the aforementioned addiction to misery porn or else because we’re just trying to smear Bruce to make our own fave look better.

Never mind that another popular refrain for a lot of the people I’m talking about here is “you don’t know what people are thinking or why they like the things that they like” so, y’know. It is a tad irritating to see that double standard applied, like I mean. Just speaking personally, I’m a survivor of childhood physical and sexual abuse with a lifetime’s worth of C-PTSD and permanent estrangement from my abusive family, so like....those stories where Dick is abused by a figure he never thought would hurt him and now has to reconcile that with still loving and admiring that very same person and still wanting to be family.....like, hey guess what, those themes are part of why his character resonates for me in particular and so they’re kiiiiiinda key for me to explore for a lot of reasons. And given that this fandom looooooves to talk about some people writing dark shit to cope, I find it veeeeeery curious that people are so willing to shut the fuck up and say nothing about incest, rape and pedophilia fics even if they don’t like them themselves......but will still come out of the woodwork to condescend about there being absolutely no valid reason for anyone to ever engage with content where Bruce is abusive even just in one singular instance.....nah. Its literally just cuz of the misery porn addiction.

But see.....the thing at the heart of all this is the simple fact that this hypocrisy doesn’t exist just for the sake of hypocrisy. It exists because we actually all DO know how much power and influence fans can have in an interactive environment like fandom.

After all, the entire reason that Dick Grayson fans are so often posting informative panel-filled posts about what ACTUALLY happens in canon stories that are DIRECTLY cited in many meta, fanfics and headcanons, just.....in a totally backwards way that just so happens to fail to mention that its not intended to be an accurate depiction of the canon its definitely mentioning its in reference to....

The entire reason for this is because of how thoroughly fandom has crafted a specific narrative for Dick Grayson’s character that is based PURELY on their own characterization wants and needs and has very little to do with the actual canon of the character.

Its not a coincidence that so many fans just so happen to genuinely, truly believe that Dick was a grade A asshole to Jason while he was Robin, and there’s a wealth of canon out there somewhere to back it up. No, this happened because of fanFIC narratives where this is the case, and these catching on, and being encouraged by the initial writers of this trope and its fans and so on and so forth until it became the overarching fandom narrative and not only didn’t require any canon basis to be so....it barely ALLOWED for any talk of the contrary. Dick Grayson stans had to yell and churn out posts like that last one for YEARS to make a DENT in this fanon conviction, and do NOT even approach me about it being an issue of tone and ‘if we’d only asked politely’ because lol. No. We did. You can find the clear shift in the tone of my posts from when I first re-entered the fandom years ago to when I just got frustrated with the willful avoidance of WHY so many fans like myself are so annoyed by certain fandom convictions......and even then, it was about the hypocrisy. It was about how loudly other people crow about letting them have their headcanons while literally shouting down ANY post we made about wanting space to just have our CANON-canon.

Pro-tip: that thing where if you just ignore someone long enough on a certain point, they’ll inevitably start to get frustrated and then you can point to their tone as being the problem and claim that was the issue all along? Yeah. Its not slick. This fandom didn’t invent it. Its always very transparent, and very obnoxious. 

But the point is.....fandom absolutely has the ability to override canon narratives with their own version that’s then formative for new entrants to the fandom who never even BOTHER with the source material and just are here for the fic. And so its dishonest as FUCK for people to not only MAKE no distinction between what’s genuinely their interpretation of the canon and what’s their transformation of it, with INTENT......but to weaponize fandom’s aversion to content-criticism to shout down even ATTEMPTS to introduce discussion of the actual source material by claiming oh you’re just trying force your preferred narrative on everyone else. Aka that thing THEY’RE actually doing themselves by once attaining a fandom wide narrative they like, maintaining a stranglehold on it and doing their best to dissuade any narratives to the contrary staking a claim alongside that.

Because again, it all comes back to the fic. See, as a Dick Grayson fan, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I turn to fic for what I can’t get from canon...and its frustrating as hell to see writers that loudly talk of being BETTER than canon and “RIP to canon but my Batfam loves each other” in a lot of cases DELIBERATELY make Dick in particular look WORSE.....and then act like they have no idea what we’re talking about when we try and tell fans who take these narratives at face value that uh, they’re lacking some extremely relevant context and nuance. Or in some cases, outright facts.

And I will happily laugh loudly in the face of anyone who tries to claim that they don’t feel similarly about fics that characterize their own faves in ways they don’t like.

Yeah, try telling me that after years of some of you writing fics that specifically exclude all reference to the events of Nightwing #30 when talking about Dick’s death or Spyral.....while still including every in canon instance of people bagging on Dick for what he only did in canon because of Bruce’s abusive writing. There’s kinda a vested interest in keeping fandom relatively free of talk of Nightwing #30 then.....because weirdly, people who write about a DIFFERENT take that’s not hostile to Dick seem to end up putting the blame on Bruce for that situation. Bizarre, I know. People attributing blame to the character who was actually abusive in the canon and being cranky that the victim of said abuse is held up as the sacrificial lamb in everyone else’s fics? Whodathunkit.

(Also a point of irritation - it never had to be just one or the other. This is where the whole ‘maybe its YOU guys who were projecting all along when you said the only reason we could have for talking about Bruce’s abuse was an intent to smear the character’ bit is a thing. See, fun fact: if you were going to ignore an issue or two in order to completely flip the narrative of what really happened with Spyral and dominate the fandom landscape for a couple of years....it never had to be Nightwing #30 that was the ONLY issue you could leave out in order to not make Bruce look like an abusive asshat. Like, there was always another option right there in front of you. You could have instead chosen to also leave out Grayson #12, aka the one where Dick informs everyone else he’s alive.....then you could very easily just sliiiiiide in reference to Bruce and Dick quietly informing the whole family of his status and his mission while insisting on keeping it quiet for his safety. Voila. NOBODY has to be an asshole then, and the whole family gets to be in the know. But see, most people didn’t actually have a problem with someone being an asshole in that story. They just didn’t want it to be Bruce, and didn’t mind it being his actual victim. 

Even though, lol, just another FYI.....abuse victims having things flipped on them so it looks like they’re the true problem and their abusers are completely innocent is a HUGE thing that happens a lot in real life, so FYI about that FYI.....anyone who does say, gravitate towards Dick Grayson specifically because of how he’s impacted or might be impacted by abuse from his father, like.....is proooooobably not going to have a super fun time with diehard commitment to making this particular fictional character the true mastermind of his family’s misery and abusive instead of the abused. Weird huh.)

And round and round it goes. Where it ends, nobody knows.....because it doesn’t. fucking. stop. The number of ways in which fandom has willfully flipped the narrative so that Dick is the aggressor instead of the aggrieved is just absolutely ridiculous. This guy has been punched by every member of his family except Duke and Alfred, and somehow he’s the one characterized as uncomfy to be around because of how volatile he is. This guy is the only one who has actually been KICKED OUT of the manor, and somehow that gets glossed over and considered out of character while he apparently definitely did very much do this exact specific thing to Tim, I hear.

And like broken records, people squawk ‘let us have our interpretations/headcanons/etc’ any time we try and make a stink about how no, actually, that’s NOT HOW IT WENT....and at the EXACT SAME TIME....most of these exact same people show up on every post that uses ACTUAL information to make Bruce or Jason or Tim or whomever look like the actual problem in a story where they were actually problematic, like, the SECOND a post gets popular enough....to derail, to condescend, to shout it down with how its just a retcon or its out of character or its just a bad take or how fans with taste know better than to take it seriously.

And why do you care? Like, if we’re all supposed to just live and let live and everyone’s allowed their own interpretations, why this everpresent need to show up all the time with a superior, patronizing ‘oof, this is just not good’ the second one of YOUR faves is in the hotseat, while condescendingly boxing out any posts informing people of how no, actually, Dick and Kory’s breakup WAS linked to Mirage and Dick and Donna’s infamous fight WASN’T the way its commonly talked about and oh yeah there was brainwashing there too and etc, etc....see, when WE do that, we’re just overacting stans who can’t stand others not liking our fave. Instead of just....trying to correct misinformation so more fans can at least engage with the character from a starting point of zero instead of a negative integer. 

So why this hypocrisy? Oh yeah, because you don’t WANT the misinformation corrected. Because see, when the misinformation IS corrected, fic writers en masse....make different choices. And that’s why ever since more people started picking up the refrain of “well no actually Dick DIDN’T hate Jason, here’s the proof”.....there’s a lot more stories out there where...shockingly....Dick doesn’t hate Jason. Which bizarrely, does not really work well for the people who WANTED Dick to hate Jason and made a point to SHAPE the narrative to make him hate Jason.....because it wasn’t about that just being their interpretation, and it never was. Because the CHOICE to cut out Dick’s ‘justification for feeling slighted’ by being fired as Robin and pair that specifically WITH Dick resenting Jason for Bruce still making him Robin instead of Dick doing it....that has a narrative cause and effect within a lot of the fics that go with this. It gives Jason eternal underdog status that makes it easy to root for him while positioning someone specifically to blame for that underdog status and unfair playing field, and it also keeps focus off Bruce as the cause of any issues between his sons due to choices HE made, thus one singular figure is positioned as the obstacle to family unity....and that figure isn’t Bruce.

And no canon to the contrary will be acknowledged as legitimate.

Convenient huh?

Especially paired with the ‘thou shalt not con crit on another’s fic’ fandom commandment. Because when you can’t complain about any fanfic depictions whatsoever without immediately and inherently being cast as the rabble-rouser by default.....the ability to shape and dominate a specific fandom narrative becomes veeeeery key. After all, another popular fandom phrase is ‘we’re not the DC writers, complain to them about canon.’ But when there’s no canon complaint to be made to DC specifically, because its not canon we’re actually upset about, and we’re not ‘allowed’ to criticize fandom depictions because people are allowed to have their interpretations......all you have to do is stand your ground and insist that the fandom depictions of Dick are nothing BUT ‘interpretations’ and not acknowledge aaaaaaany of the places where you consciously make the decision to transform canon choices and behavior around him.....and voila. You’ve wrapped everything up in a neat little logic trap. Quite the fait accompli. There’s really no way for anyone to say or do anything ABOUT this little situation here without being ‘disruptive,’ ‘divisive’ and ‘having a negative impact on fandom harmony.’

Its just always gonna be a little weird to me, how much your positivity culture looks a lot like plausible deniability culture instead.

But whatever. That’s just a me problem I guess. Definitely not something anyone else in fandom has anything to do with. Just like they have nothing to do with derailments or condescension or counter arguments to so many of the canon-based Dick Grayson posts I make, and this is also all my doing...wait...hang on. I think I got mixed up again somewhere. Dang it.

[halfpint55]

A Defence of Kataang with regards to how they are portrayed in TLoK (it’s long but there’s headcanons at the end)

Note: This is not about shipping wars. This is a safe zone. This is not about Zutara vs Kataang. This is me defending Kataang and the characters themselves...from the writers. 

I initially wrote this as a response to a post that got me heated. My reblog just made it too long so here it is as its own post. 

Now this post ripped apart Kataang as a couple but more than that said some stuff about Aang himself that hurt my heart. I didn’t really want to pick on this post but its condemning of Kataang was based almost entirely in what we know of them as parents in TLoK and honestly it’s that lil nugget of canon that I take issue with. It has bothered me from the get go because it doesn’t make sense from a writing and story perspective, and it’s been pissing me off since I watched it.

TL;DR nice and early bc this post is gonna be a long one:

This particular condemnation of Kataang rests almost entirely on the SHITTY way they were portrayed as parents by the writers of LoK, and in all honesty, on this particular topic, canon should be ignored.

Overall Kataang parenting is of my biggest gripes with LoK because in terms of writing it’s totally incongruous - it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t align, and it makes zero sense for what we know of those characters, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive the showrunners for allowing it to be written it into canon.

I will also preface this by saying I like LoK - love it. I had a scroll through the comments and reblogs on this post, and a lot of the hate towards this portrayal of Kataang ended up being blamed on the “terrible writing of LoK” which is not where I stand at all. That being said I am so angry at the writers for this one.

The other portion of the concurring comments that were very hateful towards Kataang came from Zutara shippers and honestly for me, although I do ship Kataang, this not a just a Kataang issue. I’m of the belief that Zutara would’ve just as easily been written to have similar issues due to very similar dynamics - Zutara also would have been two powerful benders from very different cultures, and with Zuko/Aang (whoever you ship w her) having a massively important global leadership role that is embedded in who they are, and therefore impossible to ignore as a factor in their relationship.

Now let me be clear, my desire to reject canon on this front is by no means me wanting to believe the best of my faves, and not wanting to hear a word against Aang. It’s not even necessarily a defence of Kataang bc I ship it that hard (I mean I do but I can set that aside for the sake of argument if that’s what you need from me here). 

The first, and main issue people have with Aang/Kataang in Korra, is the first point of the original post:

So why in hell would [Katara] be okay with Aang ignoring TWO of their children’s complete existence once he found out they had an airbending son?

And I agree with the post on this front; Katara would not have allowed her children to each be treated differently by their father. I had the same initial thought when watching LoK, and it’s the reason I hate and want to ignore the canon of LoK so badly. 

As much as it hurts to think of, we have to accept that Aang wouldn’t have been able to stop his preferential treatment for Tenzin from bleeding through into his parenting just out of a desperate desire to save his culture (which is absolutely understandable - doesn’t make it okay, but it’s understandable; Aang suffered an incredible loss, a massive cultural trauma which he alone carries the burden of). So of course he wasn’t able to hide how excited he was, and forgot to be mindful of his attitude and behaviour towards Kya and Bumi. So this aspect of canon Kataang? Yeah, I’m with it. So far so good. EXCEPT the most unrealistic element of canon is now that Katara would let him. I simply do not believe for a second that Katara would’ve allowed Aang to be the kind of parent LoK painted him to be.

However, I do not think it would’ve been a point of contention between the two of them! Katara would pull him aside, Katara would gently (but firmly) point out what Aang mightn’t be able to see for himself - he’s focusing too hard on Tenzin.

And Aang would listen.

All throughout A;tLA the two of them often help the other sort through their stuff. Aang has a great track record of being receptive to Katara’s advice and help (calming him down when discovering Monk Gyatso’s body, The Desert when he Appa is stolen, Serpent’s Pass when he’s bottling his feelings about Appa being missing). He’s also just so receptive to others’ ideas - he just goes with it and trusts in his friends (think of his trust in Katara’s plan to rescue Haru, his trust in staying behind with Sokka in the library to get the eclipse info). Aang’s humility is one of the most incredible things about him and it’s at the core of who he is. He would absolutely be able to hear Katara telling him he’s focusing too hard on one child - he would be open, and he’d listen.

So to me now canon just does not make sense at all. it does not align with their established character traits. And yes, people change as they get older and grow into adulthood but honestly, the elements of their respective personalities that we’re talking about here are pretty core elements of who these two people are.

Katara has always been fiercely protective of those she loves, strongwilled, stubborn, and ready to (vocally or physically) fight for what she believes is right and that wouldn’t disappear as she gets older. She wouldn’t let Aang’s preferrential treatment slide.

Aang has always been, and chose to be despite his loss, an optimistic, kind, believe in the best of humanity kind of person. He’s open to all points of view, he’s a good listener, he always tries his absolute best to find solutions that are good for everyone. And again his humility, his willingness to love, is who he is.  He believes all humans (including fkn OZAI) and all life are sacred, he believes in the absolute right to life. The kid is a vegetarian for crying out loud.

Now the parts of the take in the post that hurt my heart to read about what OP thinks of Aang:

“Aang never made an attempt to establish anything resembling a real familial unit with Katara, basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender [...] she was treated like some trophy wife to give birth to airbenders and that’s it!”

I wasn’t going to address this in this post until I read the comments in the notes, because people seem to agree. They share the sentiment that Katara was reduced to “just a love interest” by the two ending up together.

However I do very much take issue w the notion that Aang “basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender” (and honestly that entire paragraph - we don’t actually know that Aang didn’t make an effort to establish a family unit). As much as the LoK writers fucked up in their portrayal of Kataang as parents, this is a much harsher judgement of Aang’s character as a husband and father than anything implied by Aang and Katara’s children. I just don’t buy that Aang would view Katara (or anyone he married, even if you don’t ship Kataang) as a trophy wife, whose only role is to have airbender children. He never has viewed her that way - he has always looked at her like she’s the sun, and the most important person to him after she pulled him out of the iceburg. He loves her the most of anyone on the planet. It does not align with his character, his values or beliefs that he’d think of her (or any partner) that way. He is so besotted with Katara for who she is it HURT me to read that part of your take. Aang simply would never. Look at how he looks at her! 

What’s more is the unwavering respect and deference he shows Katara as his waterbending master - he recognises and loves her as the whole, complete, three dimensional, TALENTED POWERFUL INCREDIBLE WOMAN that she is. She is NEVER “just” a love interest for Aang. (But ALSO, do we respect Suki any less for being Sokka’s obvious love interest??? No. suki is written to be so badass that Sokka is HER love interest and I think Katara has equally badass energy but I digress).

Moving on!

OP made an excellent point that there would’ve been culturally different values between the two but I don’t think it would’ve been family that was the clashing point. Yes the airbenders value spirituality and enlightenment. But they lived together in massive communities! They supported and raised one another. Their community and culture was strong, and they were bonded in their spirituality! They value love, as well as enlightenment, peace, and the lives of all.

Now, again the points they made about the cultural divides within the Kataang family unit are valid, but also again I dislike how they chose to portray this in LoK. It would definitely be a struggle they faced as a couple. However I think they really missed an opportunity here with where they took it. Because they do at one point in the comics have Katara bring up the fact that their family will be a blend of two cultures, and she brings it up because Aang is trying so hard to bring balance back to the world by means of seperation.

They’ve known from the get go of being a couple that they’re going to have to navigate being a culturally blended family unit.

So I find it so shitty that they wrote it so that Kya got to learn the waterbending culture, Tenzin got Air and bumi got…nothing? It’s dangerously close to the way Disney does the “the girls are carbon copies of mum, and the boys are carbon copies of dad” thing (think Lady and the Tramp). It’s lazy. Especially when we had that “separation is an illusion” episode, AND things like Zuko learning different nation’s styles and applying them to his firebending, and Sokka learning an element of strategy or fighting from every nation. 

So give us Kya using Airbending moves with her waterbending (maybe she invents the water scooter)! Give us Tenzin doing more grounded moves that Aunty Toph (or Lin, while they were together) taught him from earthbending.

There are much more creative ways to illustrate the bumps and troubles Kataang might have run into in trying to navigate incorporating equal parts of their cultures in their children and family unit. Even just smaller scale issues like food and meals - how do they figure out how to do mealstimes with Aang’s vegetarianism with Katara’s culturally significant Water Tribe meat dishes? And then even taking into account how picky little kids can be!

Give me a scene where they literally just ate moon pies for a week because toddler Kya would scream if you put anything else down in front of her.

Maybe Bumi demanded sea prunes over and over but Katara and Bumi are the only ones who like them, and Bumi bonds with his mother this way - they go on little one-on-one outings to water tribe restaurants in Republic City, searching for the most authentic sea prunes!

Kya maybe likes the water tribe fashions the most because it helps her connect with her namesake BUT Kya also has a playful sense of humour - not unlike Monk Gyatso - Aang sees how much she loved moon pies and teaches her to throw them with waterbending.

We know Tenzin was a calm, quiet, and possibly shy child. Maybe he loved to hole himself away learning crafts. Give me Tenzin learning to tattoo, Tenzin learning to carve (and carving his first glider - it crashes of course), but also Tenzin learning to carve water tribe adornments and necklaces. Katara tries at first but when she gets busy Sokka comes in and teaches Tenzin to break all the carving rules Katara has laid down (”it doesn’t need to be perfect my little pupil - let the creativity flow!”)

Tenzin may not be able to waterbend but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn other means of healing. As the littlest he spent a lot of time watching Katara work - she teaches him to tie splints, dress wounds, and yes deliver babies.

If you made it here I love you so much for reading. I love sharing my thoughts so HIGH FIVE YOU MADE IT, ur now my friend - the friendship is non-refundable sorry 😌😌

[whetstonefires]

thanks! i appreciate the like. reinforcement. 💕

yeah it's like. this is just wank. mostly i ignore the wank. but on this particular post i managed to land on the line between 'angry' and 'indifferent' such that i could produce a fairly reasonable reply, so i engaged.

it's funny tho, i know i didn't make myself understood, because the original op's reply (promptly reblog-locked, cool feature we now have) argues that the fics i'm 'upset' about exist reciprocally, ignoring Tony's rich inner life.

but i'm not upset about tony-centric fic that doesn't care about anyone but tony, i'm saying it's normal for people to prioritize their fave blorbos. tony stark is not being singled out for some kind of oppression here.

he's just...not so special he has to be everyone's blorb. that's the point.

but ofc he does have a fanbase that's inclined toward feeling like he is that special. the rightful main character of the universe. because his movies (and to a slightly lesser extent the team movies) actively make that assertion. and to not be put off the guy after a certain level of this, you have to be able to be comfortable with that approach.

so people who identify as tony stark fans have an outsized tendency to put forth arguments, based in redemptive suffering logic or oppression olympics or whatever, for why he's entitled to be centered in every conversation to which he can be considered relevant, and why people who don't do so are Bad.

real 'buy Twitter to protect Free Speech' energy ngl.

the projection of the 'team cap vs team iron man' obsession onto people who deeply did not care (except they're now increasingly done with tony stark because this keeps happening) is the problem here.

forcing that combative energy into contexts where it does not belong and creating random enemies in order to reinforce one's own righteous martyrdom complex like some kind of evangelical missionary or iron man is shitty energy to bring to a fandom, and makes things worse for everyone.

so yeah, you're right grison, it's about the same level of textual engagement and similar story approach to disability across the MCU. there's a lot you could do and for all i know people are in fact doing with disability as read between the lines of these increasingly shitty schlock films, utilizing multiple character angles.

something to be said, actually, for how Tony's scenario provides an emotional cushion around working with disability issues of 'the worst parts of this can't happen because he has Money and Science' so it's safer to engage with than a realistic story, while Steve's provides an emotional cushion of 'no matter how bad it gets, it's Over, he Got Through It and now the only consequences are emotional.'

different people need different shields.

now, if i was engaging the putative topic of 'choosing one of these guys for this role of fandom's favorite cripple' seriously, like it's an election or something, i could say that i can't relate to Tony Stark as disability rep regardless of how you interpret his condition, because my experience of disability is so tied up in financial insecurity.

poverty and disability are locked in a vicious circle, perpetuating one another.

ofc i don't dispute anyone's right to relate to the fantasy of being able to throw brilliance and wealth and power at Symptoms Disorder and make it almost not matter, or be into the pathos at the edge of that competency, where he can't quite seize control of all reality no matter his will and power. but i don't feel it.

a really good fic about it might be moving, but i wouldn't feel Seen. you know?

and i wouldn't be comfortable being spoken for by someone with such an alien experience of living with diminished capacity, if he were a real person who actually had things to say. i wouldn't expect him to empathize with or even understand my problems. he could speak for himself, but not for me.

like you say, both stories engage with disability as something to be transcended and triumphed over via Science, but on a character level i relate more to steve rogers being told he can have the job he's applying for if he goes through (and survives) this experimental treatment for his Problems and Disorders.

so i think there is sound logic behind the majority of the fandom, apparently, preferring steve rogers as reference point on this subject. evil secret biases against blorbo are not required to explain this preponderance.

but like disability is so varied it's just weird to be picking that as a subject to champion a Single Poster Boy Authority for in the first place. rep is never one-size-fits-all in the first place.

you could make a strong argument Bruce Banner is the 'best' onscreen disability rep in the Avengers--it's a mental health issue turned fantastically physiological and thus kind of dealing in metaphor, but it very much ruined his life in a recognizable way. and he has to cope with it, on an ongoing basis.

but a lotta people do not feel represented by the Hulk lmao. and i'm not going to tell them they should!

if we want to lean on the Peggy Carter show as a source there's that guy Daniel who lost a leg in the war. why doesn't everyone center him in all their MCU disability fic and meta, huh?

it's dumb. it's really dumb.

but the arguments starting from the presumption that people should look to tony stark as the authority on living with a disability, and presuming therefore that since people weren't doing what they should be doing you must discern what was bad and wicked about those people to motivate this wrongness--

that got to me. there's an underlying back-to-front logic of coercion and intolerance-of-nonconformity there. that i never like to see, and obviously it's worse when it's part of Real Actual Politics, but seeing such serious topics leveraged in such a way regarding the Unjust Loss Of Hyper-Specific Popularity Contest By Blorbo was just. a lot.

So I can't reply to @phoenixyfriend having replied to my reblog because either they've blocked me or they don't do DMs with non-mutuals despite suggesting that as a preferable forum for disagreement, but in brief:

My reblog was 'necessary' within the very limited definition of that word that applies to fandom blogging because that post was not a post About Tony Stark. I don't engage with posts About Tony Stark or most characters in general that I disagree with, in general! It's rude and life is too short.

That post, however, was not about Tony. It was a conversation between bloggers asserting an argument for why people who don't agree with your headcanons are morally inferior and have Bad Corrupt Motives.

"What does it say that Steve is, in fandom, often considered a better/more qualified speaker on the topic of chronic illness and disability than Tony" and "these people would rather listen to the white, able-bodied guy than the person actually forced to live with the consequences of life-long disability" and "viewers with that perspective continue to see his disability as a sign that he's still a bad person, because he hasn't 'earned' a cure the way Steve did."

(Which again is wild as a take because Iron Man 3 has tony 'earn' his way out of both physical damage and PTSD through willpower and smartness in the ending montage, because inspiration porn doesn't work if you stay damaged.)

It was a post about the fandom. Accusing other actual human beings of being morally at fault for how they interpreted the marvel cinematic universe.

Not like, an intense horrible attack post as these things go, but it still wasn't about characters. It was about other fans. That is different from talking about characters! Your post was about how it's sus and shameful for people to disagree with you, not about your actual positions and why they're right. Let alone about the character. That doesn't fall under the curtain of 'don't start shit' because shit was already started.

Like I don't have any Avengers fic, haven't been in the fandom for several years, and I was still sitting here scrolling my dash getting these Bad Person Motives assigned to me just for thinking one character was more meaningful disability representation, that I would be interested in hearing from on the subject, than another.

You made inflammatory statements about other actual people in a public forum, where it could be predicted they would see it.

And then flew off the handle when someone went over your post asserting their alternate perspective, carefully avoiding attacking you personally or assigning you evil motives, which would have been incredibly easy except it's a shitty way to interact so no, and speaking only in general terms about things they found personally annoying.

If you can't deal with people reblogging your posts to argue that you're being unfair, then maybe don't post about how other people only disagree with you about your blorbos because you are a better human being than those people. I mean.

[measlyfurball13]

Saw a post that pissed me off saying essentially "why do fanworks get so much more attention than original works? Fan stuff is shitty and low effort, but even I was tempted to degrade myself just to get attention." As if creating fan work automatically nets you thousands of likes just in and of itself.

I'm brought back to 2016 Deviantart. I had just started writing. Nobody was paying attention to me. I was sending my writing out into a void even worse than the normal fan content websites because I was on the wrong site for my content. Much like OP I was heartbroken. I had the search algorithms against me, my writing still had a long way to go. So you know what I did?

I built myself an audience. I started interacting with fan artists in the fandom who weren't the godly people with thousands of likes. I paid attention to other people's works-in-progress, their drawings with amazing ideas that they could build off of, technique that was still learning to grow like mine. I liked their work, paid it a comment, and you know what? That caused them to check my own works out, and lead to them returning the favor! And with those likes, the search engine began picking me up, finally drawing in others whom I hadn't reached out to first.

But you want to know what the kicker is? My works still "only" got twelve or fifteen likes a piece. If this happened, OP would have probably still whined and kicked and pouted "but I did muh fan work!1!!! Where likes???"

It doesn't work that way. It never does. It's almost like only the most talented of the supreme echelons of artists ever get more than a smidgen of attention. It's almost like talented artists are talented artists regardless of what art they're doing. Fandoms provide an advantage only in the sense that people have a general interest in what your art contains and a tag they can search it with, but that's it.

Moreover, if you're only creating art to get attention, you're never going to be satisfied. My stuff, at its best here on tumblr, a more text-based website, for the most popular fandoms, gets about sixty likes on average and way fewer reblogs. But I cherish every single one of those. Those are enough. That's sixty whole people who read my work and liked it enough to let me know, even if they didn't always save it to read later. Think of how many people that is in real life. Regain the perspective of how fantastic that is! It's incredible, it really is.

If OP wants their original work to get attention, they need to interact with the community to build their audience, just like I had to do. How often do you think they like and reblog original art? How less often do you think they spare a comment for someone's original writing? How even less often do you think they commission someone like how they probably wish people commissioned them? I'm willing to bet hardly at all.

In the end, I just feel sad. Being motivated by attention, being jealous of the attention other people's art gets, is an awful place to be. It's toxic. Creating should be primarily for the pleasure of the creator- any outside attention should be an added bonus. If you don't like what you're creating, what's the point?

[rpbetter]

what's the nicest possible way to tell a close friend their roleplay blogs suck and if they want followers and interaction like they keep complaining about they have to actually put effort into it instead of just making blog after blog and slapping a character on it like that's they need to do. I've tried to suggest this to her before by comparing other blogs that play her muse but she just feels inadequate instead of inspired to emulate them which I understand but it's very frustrating when I suggest a million ways to make her blog better and she brushes them all off for one reason or another and I don't want to say anything because she's like a sister to me. sigh.

Unfortunately, the short answer to this is that there really isn't any way you can make her see this unless she's ready to see it.

But, I don't like giving those sorts of answers, they feel hopeless and shitty, so, let's try this...

Understanding what the problem with your friend and her connecting with this information is, is important. It might help in talking to her about the issue.

What I find in these instances, and a lot of similar ones, is that the mun is unhappy about the results but quite happy with the process. She's enjoying some part of this, it's just not the lack of interaction, obviously. It's the very things she's doing to turn people off of her muses.

I think a lot of people get kind of addicted to new muses. I mean, the entire process of having a new muse:

interest to outright fixation, no matter how short-lived, in a new, inspiring muse

who is almost certainly in a new fandom, and probably, one that is very busy and popular at the moment

"someone stop me" phase, even though they've already decided

picking the perfect URL, creating the new blog, making the graphics and batches of icons

reblogging All The Content about the new muse, at least, the visual content and maybe, a couple of "oof, right in the feels" style short meta posts

plugging the new muse on the old blogs, through friends, etc.

mass follows

new mutuals! Shiny new meme asks in the inbox! New threads!

It's about the newness, the excitement, and the irrationally promising feeling that damn it, this time, the blog and muse is going to be successful, popular even, beloved, the actual favorite iteration of the character in the RPC. Like anything exciting, it's addicting for people. And like anything addicting, it can take hitting rock bottom and going several more feet down, a few times, before they're over it and want to change.

Which is, of course, where you come in with your as-yet failed RP interventions.

What makes what you're trying to do here very difficult is that there isn't a total bottoming out she's going to reach. There will always be something new and exciting coming out with a new and exciting muse that'll fix the problem, in her mind. There will always be the option and availability to create another blog, slap another muse on it, rinse and repeat. With shampoo and conditioner that never runs out.

You definitely had the right idea by trying to get her to contrast between why what she is doing isn't working the way she wants and why what someone else is doing is working out that way. It's just, as you found out, often not the best idea, no matter how well-intentioned it is. With her blogs constantly failing for reasons she refuses to believe, it's incredibly likely she's already done some comparison in all the wrong ways, ultimately going back and forth between blaming the other iterations, finding nothing but errors in the way they write the character and set up their blogs, and feeling depressed that she's not good enough, but they are.

So, you might have unintentionally inflamed all of this! She could be in a place where she's even more likely to believe that what she's doing is great as a defense mechanism for being hard on herself.

I'd also like to say that I'm aware the "right" advice here is, "there's nothing you can do, you'll just make her feel bad, people have a right to RP however they want." But, you're also her friend, and you have to be around the complaining and upset when this just keeps happening.

Furthermore, when we have very close friends like this, we automatically keep trying to fill in the gaps for them at cost to ourselves - every time they make another blog/muse, we get roped into writing things we know are just going to be dropped, making them things we know are going to left on a deserted blog, and so on. Eventually, it makes you feel bad about yourself because your efforts aren't good enough, either. It can really ruin the hobby for you, sucking away enjoyment and creativity you could be spending elsewhere.

I don't think you're wrong in trying to help both her and yourself.

Keep being honest with her. When she complains, be honest about why this is happening. And you can, indeed, be kind and honest!

Let's say that she says something about how she wrote all these opens and no one is going for them.

You could say something like, "that sucks. I liked this one, it's the one that feels and sounds like the character to me. What were you doing when you wrote that? You should rewrite the others to be a little more like that, I think people are looking for more of the character like we saw them in the series."

You're acknowledging that she's right, it does suck, it's a shitty feeling no matter how at fault for it she is. While pointing out something she did good (and, okay, maybe she didn't, maybe they all categorically sucked lol but find one that was even a tiny bit better/that has elements you can use to both boost her confidence and show her what is right, not just wrong). Then, giving her an idea - whatever she was thinking, watching, listening to at that time, she tapped into something more like the actual character, and she could do it again. And telling her what the problem is, at least with this, that people don't want a cardboard cutout muse, they want the one they like from the fandom book/show/movie.

No need to actually compare with another active mun and muse, or tell her that it's because what she's doing is terribly and driving you nuts. Even if both are true.

If she's the one that compares herself to another blog this time, seize the opportunity!

"Well, people like that the muse is developed and like the character they know. When you interact with another canon, don't you want them to be like the character you liked? You liked -current muse- for a reason. When I've felt like that, I reminded myself of why I was drawn to the character and worked harder on writing them accurately and getting their voice down. I think this other blog has done that and you haven't yet."

It's a little harsher, but she may very well only be looking for validation from you that this other blog actually sucks and she's doing great. A lot of complaints on tumblr are that - seeking validation, not help. The entire culture of that shit is not at all helpful. You don't want to try to sort of shock her out of it by being too harsh, but you do want to make it clear that you're not going to just give ass pats and tell her what she wants to hear.

You're telling her why this other blog is more successful, that the muse comes off as the character and is enjoyable to write with. Because the mun put in the effort to make them both accurate to the character and a muse that's fun/interesting/engaging to write with in RP.*

*Not all characters transfer over well to RP, either, and this might also be some of her problem. For whatever reason, some people are deeply drawn to the worst possible choices for them. They will find the least applicable character in a whole series, one with a billion characters that spans decades of material, plenty of viable options all around, but no, it's got to be this one. The one that's impossible for them to pull off, boring or disliked by the fandom, is incredibly difficult to interact with (think manic pixie bullshit, villains that are extreme loners, incredibly quiet and reserved characters, or those who are only ever seen in their canon to be bantering with friends and enemies - people they have established relationships with, unlike someone else's muse, even if that muse is a canonical friend or enemy), or is an active turn off in RP, like an outrageously overpowered character whose entire existence is based on being OP as fuck. That's going to be what they go for. Every. Damn. Time.

If you notice she's doing this, she could be compensating without even realizing it by turning the string of muses into identical and empty clichés she thinks people want to interact with, but that she can still handle writing. And unfortunately, your job is even harder, OP, because everyone has a character type...and your bestie's is Fucking Impossible to RP for 90% of the RPC Population Type lmao I'm...I'm so sorry.

Maybe if this is the case, you can get her to try out a different character that has some of the traits you've noticed she seems to always be drawn to, but without the complications. Work smarter, not harder, though! Propose this as you desperately wanting your muse to interact with x. Some people react very badly to being told "you'd write a great -muse name," others are flattered by it. If you don't know for certain that she'd be flattered, or at least not offended, that she doesn't hate this character or anything, do not say this. Just tell her that you love this character, you think she could handle them as a NPC in a thread, could she please try?

And make that the single most interesting thread in the history of threads. Specifically, for her. Give her tons of engagement with this NPC of the sort she tends to want the most. It might stick and reset some of her perspective on the types of characters she keeps choosing.

You're reminding her that she's a RPer, too, which sounds like a crazy thing to have to remind a RPer, but we do weirdly lose track of this. We get very invested in what we're putting out more than what we've successfully been given, especially when we're not being given much of what we want. So, you're prodding her to recall that there are two parts of this equation, she's been on the side of it - she's wanted to interact specifically with a canon muse because she loved the character/ship with hers/whatever, and has, as we all have, experienced both the disappointment of running through a ton of them who just are not that character and also finding the version that very much is.

This helps to put other people back into perspective in a way that isn't just "interactions." (Read as "desired attention." Which isn't a slam, it's true. It's also not a problem, we all are here to interact, we all enjoy having devoted mutuals and such. It's only a problem when we stop seeing them as anything other than a means to an end for ourselves.) She might be able to relate to them, thus, why they don't like her muses, if she can put herself back into their shoes.

You stick with that and transition it into why she picked the current muse. It's the same deal, there was something about the muse that sparked interest, creativity, etc. What was it? Something that isn't there, or there enough, in her writing. In all the excitement of muse-creation, she's probably let whatever it was slide right out the door. If you can get her to recall that feeling of interest and identify for herself what all triggered it, she might be able to stick with it.

And you've encouraged her again to give people what they want if she wants interactions by developing her muses. You've also done so, if it all applicable and true, by using yourself here, making it feel like not just a common problem, but one experienced and overcome by someone she cares about and trusts.

She might have an issue with needing a lot of high-interest, high-reward scenarios, too.

This is a high-effort, minimum reward situation for her. A lot of us in the RPC have shit like ADHD that can really make this difficult once we're experiencing it in this way, but even those who don't absolutely fall into it as well. So, you'll need ways to make it fun, but...I think if you can sort of kindly trick her into experiencing the effort as its own reward, it'd go a long, long way.

I can't really say what I do, having this problem with high-effort, minimal reward because I don't tend to experience that in RP. The writing is the reward for me, as much as I lose it utterly with happiness every time a writing partner is loving what I've given them. My reward system is set up around the writing and exploring characters. Hers seems to be set up around the reaction to it and amount of engagement with it. You need to try to use the latter to give her some of the former.

If she likes Halloween or Christmas, Fall or Winter, this could be your way into doing it!

Get her hyped about a seasonal prompt list you're doing. This does, yeah, mean you will have to do it, too lol but in the end, any time you aren't able to produce something daily like these lists usually are set up for, you're showing her that it isn't a job she's got to fulfill - the rules are only as strict as she wants to make them for herself. And if you keep yours short and fun, she'll feel like it's perfectly fine and good to do it this way as well. That it doesn't need to be a damn masterpiece or anything, just fun, something different to show off her muse.

While what she's actually doing, in addition to that, is getting in touch with and developing her muse. Importantly, when we write in a way that is just for ourselves like this, we tend to kind of...bond, for lack of a less weird sounding way of putting it, with a muse. It makes them stick with us longer, raising their importance and easier availability to us.

Let her know you're doing this, pick one out you genuinely like, and don't expect her to be down with it immediately. It's work with no foreseeable reward. Except, it's very hard to listen to our friends be excited, proud of themselves, enjoying themselves without wanting to join in. It'll be especially helpful, though, if you think people you interact with will like the posts and comment on them, or even try to turn them into threads if you include their muses (with their consent, of course, and no pressure). If she sees that, it might make it even more interesting to her. You might also have to pose this as her helping you out, that you don't think you'll get more than two done if she isn't doing it as well, as a sort of a challenge she can hold you to.

Whatever you think might work best for engaging her, you know her well, you can do it!

Be there to help her out with ideas if she goes for it. Throw out some easy, fun suggestions you think she might like, that even give her some opportunity to write something with her muse that she doesn't get a chance to. Pull from the muse's canon, is there something in their canon that goes with the prompt word "snow," for instance? Is it something she enjoyed about the canon story? Suggest it. Thinking about both the muse and your friend, is there something else that came to mind about that prompt you could suggest? Do it!

Again, whatever she's most into, it's an angle. Humor? Her serious muse is forced into a ridiculous, funny situation that involves the snow. Angst? A sad memory associated with the snow. Shipping? A romantic, fluffy scene (or steamy one). And so on.

Be there to express interest and encouragement while she's doing it. Don't do things that are going to come off as pressuring or helicopter moming her, of course! Like, asking how much she's gotten done, did she start working on it yet? That's a bad idea, unless she enjoys that sort of thing. Instead, tell her how much you can't wait to see this, ask about how it's going, tell her about yours to encourage her to talk about it.

And be there to be her audience when she posts it. This really seems to be her highest reward, so give it to her. Like the post, comment on the post, tell her in messages. Not individually, all of those things. If you can find a way to that doesn't mess up what you've got going on with your blog, mutuals, other friends, etc., mention it on your blog.

At this point, people might be both aware of her RP habits and wary of engaging with her, but someone might bite if you're enthused and go like the post. If it's applicable, make some jokes about it on the dash, turn it into a moment of inside joke-like crack for people to see. Mention that she wrote this and you loved it, link it or outright reblog her post. Hell, mention that you and her are doing such and such prompts for whatever holiday or season before the fact, that way, it doesn't come out of nowhere to your mutuals, either. Again, if applicable, you can ask to turn it into a thread.

The point, at this juncture, isn't to attract people to her blog and posts, it's to demonstrate to her that this is fun and rewarding. If you can get people to go like the posts, great, but you can only count on yourself to do it at first.

Most people enjoy those sorts of prompts on their dash from mutuals, though. You're always going to have some who feel like it's annoying because it wasn't strictly a RP reply, but whatever, they're not the majority in most fandoms anymore, thankfully. Point is, it's literally showing her mutuals that she's capable of thinking as her muse and working on her muse. It's showing off good things and making her muse more interesting and uniquely hers in a good way. And it's totally possible that she's going to organically generate likes, people wanting to use this as a plot with her for RP, and mutuals who are increasingly following along with every post made.

The hope is that she experiences the beginnings of more interest in the muse than she does making muses, gain some confidence in doing this with the enjoyment of it, and stick with a muse longer than five seconds so that she can actually end up with the interactions she wants.

There are definitely other ways of doing this, the prompt thing just came to mind because it's major prompt season. You've got a prompt list floating around for literally every popular point of interest right now, from whump to extreme fluff to horror to humor. And it's going to keep going until January. It's also something that can be as short as a paragraph or as long as several thousand words, and that a hell of a lot of people don't do all of. So, it's easy, so long as she's got a reason to find it interesting and stay on course with it even a little bit.

You could also try getting her into doing something like moodboards for her muse but with little additions of writing that go along with them. Nothing major, just things like a quote from her muse or a sentence from a starter, thread, whatever.

So long as you can get her to start refocusing on RP being enjoyable from the inside and not just the outside, it's valid as hell to try it! She seems to be experiencing RP as instant gratification and basing that gratification on things she can't control, like popularity.

Right now, even giving her the sober truth that one can write the best version of a canon muse there is to be found, be someone enjoyable and interesting in OOC interactions, and be an amazing writer without that being enough to garner popularity, or even the plots that are wanted. That being a very popular RPer and having more interactions than you know what to do with (honestly sucks ass) isn't a set of absolute values, but rather, variables that are always in flux and often, totally mysterious. It's usually a mixture of total luck, visual appeal, and both mun being on point with what people want to see right this second and muse being the mixture of fanon that is desirable, also, right at this exact second. It is seriously not within anyone's control, no matter how much effort, quality, or even outright bullshit they have to put out there.

If she's ever going to stick to a muse and not find herself envious, upset, and bored it's absolutely got to come from herself. She's got to be popular with herself, enjoying herself regardless of what others are seemingly achieving or want to give her. It's not going to be recognized no matter how harsh or sweet you are about the problem, unless she's capable of really looking at those problems as problems, and I don't think she's going to get to that point through negatively bottoming out. She might get there through the opposite, though!

It's...just going to take a lot of effort and patience from you, with no expectation of reward yourself.

Because it's still likely as hell it's just not going to happen. And while it seems like you are the kind of friend who would find the effort worth it because you care and are invested in her, please know that there's no shame in merely contemplating this and noping right out.

You've got a life and are trying to enjoy the hobby as well! And if it seems like something that could sour your friendship? It's not worth it. You're better off just accepting that she'll inevitably tire of doing this and move on to another hobby, maybe decide to do fandom blogs or something instead that you can support her in.

It's definitely an unenviable and frustrating position you're in. All you can really do is try not to let this negatively impact the friendship, to keep refraining from just outright telling her things she'd find hurtful, and try your best to show her that it's rewarding to develop the muse and stick with it, not a task. That there are improvements she can make to her blog, and that it isn't a negative reflection on her that they can be made. You can try all the compassionate trickery in the world to lead her there, but it's ultimately up to her whether she brushes this off as well, don't let it hurt your feelings or exasperate you too much!

Also, it's totally possible that even if you met through RP and/or it has been a big part of the friendship, you might have grown in different directions in the hobby.

Growing within the hobby is inherent to any hobby you stick to for long enough, especially if you started out in it young. Some people seamlessly just keep growing to things that make them happy, others experience a lot of growing pains along the way as they're maybe ready for change, but only in select areas they have to discover for themselves. Still others grow in a way that doesn't make them very happy, but they're both not ready (or willing) to approach why and what they can do, and also still too attached to the good times they had to reassess whether it's still something they want to do, or if it's something better moved away from into something else.

That's always very difficult as a friend. Difficult in watching your friends not go the same directions as you anymore, even in something as comparatively silly as a hobby, in seeing them not enjoying themselves, and in the possibility that it could signal the end of enjoying the hobby with them. It's sad and frustrating, and can feel lonely, but if you're close enough friends, you've got so many other things to still be good friends over, so keep that in mind!

She might need to keep doing this with her blog and muse situation until she comes not to the realization that she needs to change how she's RPing to get what she wants, but rather, that she wants to stop RPing. That could be the burnout that happens here eventually, but again, not only can you still be great friends, if it makes her happier, it's good.

[genderfluidlucifer]

Response to being asked to give  an opinion on Connie’s calout by residentevil-4

(Tw: CSAM, rape fic, incest fic, predatory behavior, racism, ableism, kink mention, nsfw mentions. Minors should probably dni.)

“Connie and I know each other irl and went to school together for 3 years, although they now live in a different state and have cut contact with me. We went to a private therapy school in Manhattan as we're both disabled and were deemed unable to attend public school. Even though we were pretty close, Connie didn't like having photos taken of them, so I don't have any selfies of the two of us; however, these are from our sophomore and senior yearbooks which at least confirms that we were in the same year at school. People who have seen Connie's selfies should be able to confirm that that is what they look like. First and foremost, Connie is not TMA. They are intersex and the two of us have discussed intersex issues both in person and online, but they are still decidedly CAFAB.” Ok so first off, I want to address this part of the callout. To be honest...was it really necessary to literally doxx Connie ehre? Because this textbook definition of doxxing. Yes Connie’s done some shitty things but I freally don’t think that what they’ve done warrants this level of doxxing. Or...even better, any doxxing. This feels like a really unnecessary breach of privacy, revealing sensitive information on Connie’s childhood that they choose to confide in you with. I really don’t agree with this aspect of the callout as it feels very invasive and bordering on stalkerish.  Btw when I say bordering on stalkerish I’m not directly calling you a stalker Bonnie. Just so we’re clear. I am not defending Connie supposedly faking being TMA. Because faking being TMA is a very serious issue. HOWEVER since I don’t know Connie irl and to be quite frank it’s none of my business what the nature of their agab is. Were not close and I’m certainly not going to like lead Connie onto thinking we’re friends just to confirm this with them because that would be creepy. So to be honest I’m going to take this part of the callout with again of salt for now.

[ID: A cropped screenshot of a numbered list Connie posted to their blog hadrosaurs in response to an ask. 

“3. I’m TMA And that’s completely irrelevant. I’m not accusing them because of their gender I didn’t even know their gender when they said that to me saying that they said that because they fucking said that and the reaction to it was incredibly alarming. Don’t fucking say that stuff to people.]

I mean I”m not a trans woman so take this with a grain of salt if you want but...I don’t see how this is really proof of Connie being deliberately transmisogynistic? Yes Connie gives iffy retellings of mistakes they’ve made in the past. I’ve seen that on their blog before and I won’t pretend it doesn’t happen. BUT here they sound genuine enough and to be honest a growing issue I’ve seen with callouts as of late is. A person confirms they in fact did not do the thing they were called out for. And then the people who make the callout choose to see it as proof of incriminating behavior anyways. To be honest it’s a big problem and it’s also incredibly unfair to the person being called out. If you’re so determined at that point to see the person as bigoted no matter what they say then of course anything they say can be seen as proof. So I’m going to have to pass on this bit of evidence. “Connie responded: “Final note: I have spoken extensively with several trans women about using TMA to describe myself. I will not be getting into discourse about that on this blog again. All that leads to is people demanding my medical records and calling me slurs. If you wanna have a thoughtful conversation about it direct message me cause it’s not happening again here.” Again this really doesn’t seem all that self incriminating. Connie mentions here that they’ve talked to rl trans woman about whether or not they can be considered TMA. Connie really doesn’t have to disclose that personal information to people for any reason. Yes even when people are e including this ask response in a callout. And considering lots of people DO get invasive about Connie’s medical history ans general personal life over matters like this? I feel their reaction is pretty understandable here. “Connie has constantly compared “exclusionists” (or anyone, really) to TERFs, even when the people in question are not transmisogynistic, trans exclusionary radfems, or are even transmisogyny affected themselves.

“ Gonna have to disagree with this part of the callout too. Lots of ace inclus blogs, even some run by trans women , have proven that the ace exclus movement was started by swerfs/terfs. But the blog that has the most evidence for this is courteousmingler on tumblr. I suggest you check out that blog’s archiving of the history of ace exclus rhetoric before rushing to call me a transmisogynist for disagreeing with this part of the callout. I looked through all of the evidence for Connie being racist and tbh as a black ndn it all feels incredibly flimsy. It’d be one thing if Connie was using their experiences to derail and invalidate the discussions about how black people are oppressed But they weren’t doing that there at all. This part of the post feels incredibly biased. And like OP is looking for things to be mad about. Going to have to pass on this list of evidence. Also uh I seem to recall that residentevil04 got called out for some questionable behavior as well. “Both me (insepsy, hi) and ezrat have had really weird spikes in activity on our Statcounters, both on the same day. (Saturday, 4/17/21) For both of us, majority of the pages looked at by these visitors have been related to or about Connie, or have been posts that Connie would find "problematic" such as the f slur untagged or something related to "panphobia"/aphobia. I’m sorry but...none of the proof of cyberstalking holds any water. Visiting someone’s blogs and rbing posts to disagree with them is not cyberstalking. Keeping tabs on urls that an abusive person who has harassed are using so you can block them (in this case with kyoshi) and warn your mutuals is not stalking. As a victim of rl stalking it’s...really weird to call this legit stalking at all. Much less claim that you have damning proof of it being stalking when no such evidence exists in the callout. Besides after Connie and nonbinarydave called out one of kyoshi’s buddies for sending a death threat hate anon to nonbinarydave’s toddler st4lker partly admitted to doing it a few times. Then other mutuals in kyoshi’s toxic social circle clearly began joining in. Making side accounts where they tried to spin a false narrative of nonbinarydave’s daughter being one of their alters (ableist as hell.) And also trying to do it in such a way that they thought would trigger nonibnarydave’s psychosis (also ableist as hell.) If you’re going to drag Connie for their mistakes and never let them move on from those mistakes then it’s only fair to do that to people you agree with who also do toxic/bigoted things. ALso the fact that your wording here suggests that you think panphobia and aphobia aren’t real makes me doubt this claim even more. Exclus and their allies are notorious for mislabeling inclus disagreeing with them as stalking. “connie said that they would release that info at a later time and the minor began to argue with them that they had a responsibility regardless of their complicated relationship with age. in this argument connie for a time kept their age ambiguous and at one point told the minor (who confirmed in a later ask that they were severely traumatized by adults) that they obviously weren’t traumatized. connie quickly deleted this ask and any mentions of it and the next post they reblogged was about how wrong it was to try and quantify or discount others’ trauma. on my old blog i @ed them in the replies and asked if they had just done that. connie admitted to it and said it was fucked up but quickly blocked + deleted my comment. i can’t remember whether or not connie apologized to the minor, they may have? but yeah. i thought that was pretty weird.”] I do agree with some of the concern here that adults shouldn’t over expose minors in discourse. I’ve been contemplating this for awhile myself. And trying to figure out how to take better steps to avoid including minors who are triggered by discourse in discourse, especially. HOWEVER I have one little issue with this addition to the callout. If that is the case then exclus and their allies need to practice this as well. You cannot ignore the fact that the reason a lot of minors are getting involved in exclus discourse is due to adult exclus and their allies forcing minors to pick a side in the discourse. Y’all are not at all exempt from this problem. I still remember an ex mutual of mine trying to convince a minor to agree that aces can’t face corrective rape. And based on how aggressive it got with me when I tried to avoid giving an opinion on the matter, I can’t imagine that it would’ve reacted better to the minor refusing to give an opinion or to the minor outright disagreed. Refusing to put these standards on exclus and their allies is both hypocritical and quite frankly very transparent. The claims about them glorifying dark topics on AO3 through their fics also seems unfortunately legit. I mean those asks of shaming people who ask their viewers to not romanticize or glorify abusive relationships in their works is very damning. I’m very disappointed to see that Connie has taken being an inclus to the point of validating antis anti culture wholeheartedly. I can’t think of much more to add to my opinion on that part of the callout. As for the issue of Connie interacting with pro shippers in the past, I do know that this claim is legit. I’ve seen it before and so has Breeze. This was why for a brief time we decided to stop following their blogs. Because it was triggering to have pro shippers put on our dash. And sometimes we just don’t feel it’s worth it to always let people we’re platforming know they’re rbing triggering stuff. So sometimes we just quietly unfollow and choose to not interact until we’re sure they’re filtering what they do and don’t rb in some way. I definitely don’t agree with that behavior. And if they’re still doing that I”ll deplatform again. “The anon asks: “A weird question but do you know any other stimboard blogs with your follow criteria? (No radfems, racists, fandom antis, etc.) I was hoping to find more through your “similar blogs” but a lot have no anti-antis for their DNI or allow truscum/transmeds and exclus. :(“

The user responds: “I know of @turtle-pond-stims, @outofangband, and @kinaesthetics! 🍂🍄" “[ID: A cropped screenshot of an ask sent by Connie from their now-deactivated blog, butch-with-a-tortoise.

Connie says: “hey anon I have safe stim blogs. dm me if you want them. And radfems/bigots aren’t allowed to interact. For my own safety (because the community is honestly terrifying) I can’t publicly say on my blogs that I’m safe for proshippers/kinky people but I try to spread word how I can.”] [ID: Screenshot of a post by evilwriter37, which reads, “I’ve been seeing posts about fandom police leaving ao3, and it’s like: Good. We don’t want you here anyway. Go find your own fanfiction site.”

The post is tagged “#Fandom #AO3 #Antis #Purity Culture” and has 87 notes. It was posted on December 21st, 2020.

There is a reply from main-to-outofangband-andothers saying: “there are Silm antis on that site who are against Russigon (Maedhros and Fingon) not because they’re cousins but because they’re both male (coded)”] [ID: A screenshot of an anonymous (though signed off as being from outofangband) ask sent to evilwriter37, which says, “Melkor and Viggo solidarity is ‘Look there’s nothing wrong with keeping my enemy chained up in my personal chambers at all times so please just focus on the war efforts and I’ll focus on the boy* in my chambers’ -@outofbangand.

*boy used figuratively @ antis”

The user responds: “Pfft!!! Hahaha! You’re absolutely right! (And Viggo does refer to Hiccup in canon as ‘my boy’).”] I can’t really say anything to refute this. Because these are all posts of Connie outright stating that they disagree with antis. And not only sympathize with anti antis but are fully against antis. Looks like very damning evidence. Although ngl I’m not entirely against kinky blogs as a whole? Just so long as they truly stay in their lane with their kink content. And don’t force it on others in any way. Or shame people who are triggered by their kinks. It is true that being entirely against kinky blogs no matter what is dipping your toes into swerf rhetoric. Tbh I’m not going to look at the rest. This is pretty much all I need to make a decision on whether or not I”ll continue platforming Connie. Though I will try to get some more  perspective from people who I interact with as well. Because I feel better about making a more definitive decision after doing that. Also in general please don’t not try to get an opinion from me on how I feel about syscourse. A lot of the claims about Connie’s age weirdness and them using their alters as a shield feel like syscourse to me. Especially if this callout was written by one or several singlets. Singlets should never be trying to judge how legit someone’s system is ever. Even if their system friends encourage them to. You can call out a horrible person with a system without trying to insinuate that they’re lying about their alters in some way. Doing otherwise is ableist ESPECIALLY if you’re a singlet. Also in general the reason I stay out of discussions of judging how someone is handling their systems is because it’s syscourse and syscourse is triggering for my system and I. If this post was an attempt to get me to give an opinion  on the validity of Connie’s system I don’t appreciate it. And I would appreciate not being dragged into such matters again, thank you.

In general there’s like a few parts of this callout that feel legit. Which is unfortunately cluttered with obvious bias and obsessive hatred of Connie. I’m not here to stan or coddle Connie. I know they are not a perfect person. Especially since no human being in the world is perfect. But I feel the way this callout was created was very sloppy since a lot of the evidence was messy at best. And some points were very hypocritical as well as there being some no true scotsman moments from OP. In acting like exclus never do any of the thing that they tried to call out Connie for. Which is behavior that I am not a fan of. This is why people need to be more careful about callouts and like make roughdrafts and have a more unbiased person helping them if they don’t feel they can do it on their own. I’m even trying to make a resolve to do better at that myself. So it’s not like I’m unwilling to put my money where my mouth is. Anyways those are all my thoughts on this messy callout. And tbh I’m not going to get too much more heavily involved in this. Because I need to focus on more immediately serious rl stuff more often, like doing what I can to get out of the hellish landscape of a house I currently am stuck in.

[hrmphfft]

controversial opinion time I guess but

hey gang? hey, gang. gang, hey. blaming your fans for them not reblogging your content enough (and saying that they’re Directly Responsible For Tumblr Dying) is an extremely passive aggressive, mean thing to do, and also completely ignores so many other reasons as to why engagement has changed on this site and posts don't circulate like they used to.

for one thing, whenever I see these posts, I rarely see the ops acknowledge the HUGE HIT to tumblr's userbase following the 2018 policy change/implementation of tumblr's terrible content filtering algorithm. tumblr lost roughly 1/3 of its engagement (https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-lost-a-third-of-its-users-after-porn-ban/) and countless content creators with it. some of them migrated to twitter and other sites, some of them seem to have straight-up vanished into thin air, and countless others lost their biggest or main userbase with barely any time to shift gears to something else. that's a huge, website-shaking change! but so often in these 'reblogs vs. likes' posts I don't see anyone acknowledging that and it makes me really upset!

you can't talk about the ways tumblr has undoubtedly changed these last few years and NOT address the nsfw ban! it's completely unfair to your fanbases to shift the blame of the biggest displacement of users the site has ever experienced on...the users who had no say in the policy change and reacted accordingly when the site started softbanning everyone, and filtering all sorts of tags from the search function (including important sfw ones, lest we forget The Entire Furry Fandom on tumblr discovering that basic-ass tags like #furry and #anthro were being blocked when the ban rolled around), and making uploading anything vaguely beige-colored a dice roll. tumblr still hasn't recovered from that, and unfortunately probably never will, not without some hail mary of policy changes and overhauls.

I've seen some pretty ageist shit regarding content engagement as well that tries to paint younger users as just Not Getting how tumblr functions vs. other social media sites like instagram and twitter, and on top of that just showcasing a really uncomfortable disconnect/animosity towards new users whose only crime is being younger than op and also more experienced with other social media platforms, it also is just. it's really unkind? it's super rude? how can you call your followers too clueless to know how reblogging works and then expect them to support your content via reblogging and not feel like you're insulting them until they give you the result you want?

moreover, lots of young/new tumblr users get the gist of tumblr's controls and get it very quickly! technology literacy is becoming more and more a part of everyday life for everyone, and if you really think that a teenager can't understand that reblogging puts a thing on their follower's dashboards, one of the main functionalities of the site (and also very similar to twitter, one of tumblr's main competitors), I really don't know what to say. sometimes people just straight-up don't want to reblog stuff to their blogs, and that's okay.

there's also a tendency to ignore the ways that blogging on tumblr has changed as its userbase has became more well-versed in its functions and, frankly, a portion of the userbase has grown up on this site. when I first started blogging on here, I was 17, I didn't use tags, I commented unrelated (and frankly sometimes really regrettably rude) replies directly onto artist's posts, and I basically just reblogged whatever I vaguely liked, and a lot of things I didn't totally get but thought Looked Cool/Funny so I reblogged anyways.

and that's fine, that's pretty par for the course of being young on the internet and doing whatever you want and having a good time (barring the rudeness, being respectful to people is the ideal), but as time went on my interests changed, my time spent online changed (I went from highschool to college to a full-time job that limits my time on social media), and I began engaging with tumblr's content differently. I made sideblogs for interests and content themes I didn't want on my main blog, I started liking stuff and then going back through my likes to reblog posts later, and generally speaking my number of posts a day dropped and I stopped being able to catch up on my dashboard every single day. and I'm sure my experience isn't unique for some other people on here.

a lot of the tumblr users I've known for a while just don't have the same level of intensity in fandoms like we did years back, not because of any malice or selfish, content-hogging intent, but because our priorities have changed. I definitely miss a lot of things about years past on tumblr when fandoms were booming and new Big Name Creators were cropping up all the time, and to be fair that's still happening on parts of the site if you know where to look! it's just different now. time has passed. people have changed!

that isn't to be defeatist and say that we can't show up for content we enjoy and reblog it, but instead that people can feel differently about stuff they used to adore, and be more particular about one thing or another they reblog, and straight-up miss stuff that they would have really liked but just didn't catch up on for a myriad of reasons. and that's also okay. engagement on tumblr is really, really tied up in personal preferences, and sometimes it feels like it does that more than most other social media sites. this is kind of the wild west of internet presences and everyone operates differently on here as a result.

and probably the most touchy point of all: no one is obligated to give you validation on the internet. no one. not even if they've read all of your fanfics you've worked really fucking hard on for forever and a day, or your comics that you've spent months, years, a lifetime researching and creating, or your beautifully, painstakingly timed and masked fan videos. they can absolutely consume any of these, and more, and they're still not obligated to reblog your work or promote you. it's not fair, yes, and it's completely understandable and super relatable to want recognition for the work you've done and the ways you've brightened other people's lives, but online most of your fans are still total strangers to you, and trying to control the behavior of total strangers because you’re owed their acknowledgement isn’t a healthy mindset to have.

and you can say that any fan of yours stops being a fan after they drop you for you lashing out at them for not unquestioningly giving you space on their blogs like you're owed, but being upset at being accused of bad behavior for what amounts to not wanting to reblog something this time around and changing your opinions based off of that is also a very understandable thing to do.

and that isn't because of any sort of innate cruelty, or pointed attack towards you. it's just because there is always a disconnect between the creator and the creation, and some people will never bridge that gap and engage with you more, or build a parasocial relationship with you, or seek out ways to support you. and plenty of others will do the exact opposite! it's a total dice roll because you're dealing with a lot more people than you realize scrolling past your content, and every person is different, and some of them don't fully understand how reblogs help a creator, and some of them do but just don't want that content on their feed, and none of them are inherently bad people for that.

I'm not saying creators have to be perfectly kind and civil and praise their fans all the time, but when you engage with your followers like it's a battle where you have to keep devising new ways to get them to share your content, it just comes across as super disingenuous, and people cop to that very fast. 

it also, frankly, can make longtime fans who reblog your work regularly feel like their interest doesn't matter, and wasn't good enough, and that then it really is their fault that other people (other STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET) don't engage with your content the way you wanted them to. you don't owe them perfection, but that doesn't mean it isn't still an unkind thing to do.

so like. what can we do about this?

asking users to reblog your work is totally fine and can help! calls to action work more than nothing at all. it's possible to be respectful when asking people to reblog your work without also guilt-tripping them with "likes < reblogs" banners and passive aggressive tags/comments. generally speaking guilt is a really shitty motivational tool, and tends to breed more resentment than actual outcomes people want. like this post for example! I wouldn't have sat down and typed this all out if I didn't resent the hell out of being told I'm, personally, the reason tumblr is demonstrably not an ideal website for building a fanbase anymore. if I had that much power over this website I would have given the whole thing to the xkit team years ago and reveled in a functional website instead.

changing the way you post content might help! every site has its ideal posting days, times, and reasons for why some are ideal for one site and not another. doing a little research (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/) will yield some potentially helpful tips and tricks that might result in a post reaching more people. utilizing tumblr's search function is also important, and understanding the limits of the tag function (ie. only the first 5 tags of a post are used for tag searches) can help change one's habits to something a little more effective. this is why I tend to leave my tag babbling until after the main fandom/category tags on my posts, so that tumblr's jankass search has a better shot, haha

broadening your online presence can definitely help! this is by far the most terrifying option since it involves branching out onto other social media platforms, some of which really don't lend themselves to whatever fandom/content one produces, so like the other two above it's only a suggestion.

I keep coming back to twitter and instagram, but that's mainly because they're the two other powerhouses of social media right now, though admittedly they only really cater towards visual media (and mainly imagery, not longer video pieces), and they have their own weird quirks to learn and jank to deal with. but given how precarious tumblr's status has become in some ways, trying to build a presence on multiple sites means that you reach more people across the internet, and also means that if tumblr does yet another website-shattering policy change, your eggs aren't all in one basket.

of course these options aren't foolproof, and won't work for everyone in some cases or not at all for others, but my main point in all this is this: tumblr has irrevocably changed, its userbase has changed, and we are limited in the ways we can directly influence it, but there are still options. I'm by far not a social media expert, but then again none of the posts I've seen so far were made by social media experts either, so I honestly don't feel too bad for throwing my hat into the ring while we're all thrashing about in confusion

y'all aren't wrong that things have changed, but I'm begging you to have some compassion and to try not to turn the relationship between creators and consumers of content into a battleground, especially when a lot of the influences on these changes are things entirely outside of any of our's direct control.

also because it makes y'all sound exactly like this:

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

@kiwimeringue replied to your post “I know it’s generally rude and very unwise to reply to a fandom...”

ok I'm super curious now, feel free to message me if you want to talk about it all stealthy-like~

@veliseraptor replied to your post “I know it’s generally rude and very unwise to reply to a fandom...”

i'm so curious

apparently I did want to talk about it, because this got looooong (also please do not add more discourse to this post, it’s probably kind of shitty of me but I don’t super want to have a dialogue about it, I just want to barf out my thoughts and defend my own faves on my own post, so if you want to argue with me I would really rather you didn’t and just made your own post instead)

(I also only just realized that I only put “tony stark negative” and “tony stark critical” in the tags, not anywhere before the cut, so here’s your warning now if you didn’t see the tags that this is me being frustrated with a lot things about how Tony is written)

I can't find the actual post now to screenshot or link because I just came across it on my dash, got annoyed, scrolled past, and then made my post when I couldn't stop grumpily thinking about it (so at this point I also don't remember who the OP was or who reblogged it onto my dash, which is probably just as well), but the gist was that almost all MCU title characters have storylines establishing that they're wrong about something and they show growth by accepting that and working to improve...except Steve, who never acknowledges that he might ever be wrong about anything, with the implication that this makes him a bad, self-righteous character who is basically incapable of growth. several other characters--Tony, Thor, Dr. Strange, Peter Parker--were mentioned, but the state of fandom discourse makes me assume any Steve-negative post exists at least in part to show how much better Tony is, which...may not always be a fair assumption on my part, but I do think it's fair to say that's still a relevant context. and of course Steve is one of my favorite characters, so anything even mildly Steve-negative puts me at least somewhat on the defensive right away, which again is not necessarily fair. (the other post that’s already sitting in my notes is about Ragnarok, which is probably even less surprising.)

anyway the post made me grumpy to begin with and then doubly so because I couldn't think of a good way to refute it aside from "yeah well maybe Steve's just a better person than your faves and he doesn't need a whole character arc about realizing he's been an asshole and needs to change because he didn't start out as an asshole to begin with, bet you didn't think of that huh" which is of course VERY unhelpful. but then I started thinking about how I don't think OP is right about the changed characters to begin with, given that a) it's not really fair to compare a character who's only had one solo movie (Dr. Strange) with characters who've had more, b) Spider-Man is kind of an edge case because he's a teenager and a lot of the problems in his movies stem from a combination of him being a fucking teenager and Tony dumping him with tons of dangerous tech that he doesn't have the training or adult impulse control to use safely and then blaming him when disaster inevitably results, and c) the characters who have had multiple movies and arcs focused on realizing they were wrong about something (just Thor and Tony, really) are...maybe not actually great examples because like 75% of that character development seems to reset after each movie and, actually, the narrative still operates under the premise that these characters are basically right even if some other characters don't agree. like...I mean, the only lessons Thor really, consistently seems to learn are "humans are at least not totally worthless (but lbr they're mostly silly and cute)" and "Odin is extremely wise and probably right about almost everything despite mountains of evidence--that grow with every single film he's in--to the contrary". 

and Tony, well--yeah, that's his arc, in theory, and in theory I don't have a problem with flawed characters who keep making the same mistakes because let's face it, that's a very human thing to do. but with posts like this, it's like...you're effectively arguing that he doesn't really make mistakes overall, though, because it’s really just an opportunity for growth? and that when he does, the narrative shows he's wrong, he admits he's wrong, and he makes consistent efforts to change? which...again, obviously I have my own biases, but I have to see this as a weird interpretation because he's basically been the main character of the entire MCU thus far, which means he's likely to get sympathetic treatment and justification from the narrative even if he's ostensibly being called out for fucking up, and that's something I've definitely seen. his entire first movie is about him realizing how wrong he was and working to do better, definitely, but he ends up being his own worst enemy half the time and other people suffer for it. like...he wants to protect the world, okay, that's a reasonable goal. you can argue that the vision Wanda gave him made things worse, and that's possible, but I don't know how much that might be true given that I'm pretty sure he was working on Ultron before that too (and her mind-magic mostly seemed to work by emphasizing something that was already there, not planting new ideas). so he ends up creating a murderbot, with good intentions but he still does it and he keeps it secret from the other Avengers, and now-sentient murderbot immediately reaches the conclusion that humanity is awful and they won't need protecting if they're all gone, and everything breaks very bad, and then Tony...basically does the exact same thing again, without telling anybody else, in hopes that it'll work out better this time because JARVIS? and it does but that seems like mostly luck? and everybody manages to defeat the murderbot, barely, but a not-insignificant number of civilians die anyway because that tends to happen when a sentient murderbot goes on a rampage, and Tony feels really guilty about this when it's shoved in his face, so he deals with his guilt by kind of...spreading it around and allowing the possibility of other major problems down the line so they can hand over some of that responsibility and he can feel less guilty. (that’s not the most charitable interpretation, yeah, but I also don’t think it’s an unreasonable one, based on what’s there in the text.) and then of course things blow up and other problems get dragged in and it's a huge mess and half the Avengers are fugitives, and the general consensus sort of seems to be that nobody was completely right or completely wrong but Steve is the only one who actually apologizes for any of it (no wait, I guess Wanda and Vision apologized but just to each other) and Rhodey reinforces the idea that the Accords were a good idea with no major drawbacks...and then Thanos shows up and things get SO VERY MUCH worse.

and Tony is once again stricken with grief and guilt (not to mention half dead), so lashing out at Steve is understandable, but what he actually says is basically that this is all Steve's fault because he wasn't there (even though he immediately sent Tony that phone, which means Tony could have contacted him at any time but hesitated to do so even when monsters were basically falling from the sky), and he was right about the Accords and Ultron even if the latter didn't work out so well in ways that probably could have been predicted, and...that's what we're left with. nobody else has a meaningful opportunity to say "now hold on a second, you cannot possibly be arguing both for accountability and for your right to decide for the entire world that exchanging some freedom for some potential security is a good trade, and also how are you saying you were essentially right about Ultron when Ultron is what kicked off the desire for the Accords" or, like, anything. (does the world need a security blanket? going by the evidence...yeah, probably? but again. Tony. you tried that and you made a sentient murderbot instead so like, your track record is not great!!)

and then it all culminates with Tony sacrificing himself to save the universe, which I do at least think was a climactic, thematically resonant send-off for such a major character--for the final time, in the most final possible of ways, he reaches a point where there's no more clever tricks and he reacts by selflessly taking the entirety of the consequences onto himself. I can't say I'm happy with it, because I'm not a fan of character death in general even when it doesn't involve my top faves, and it absolutely would have been possible for the filmmakers to keep him alive if they hadn't gone into this with the specific intention of ending Tony's arc with his death. (ditto on all the other major character deaths, which is a big part about why they make me mad--none of them really, honestly had to happen, some even less than others.) but regardless of my feelings on whether it had to happen, it's inarguable that his entire arc from Iron Man to Endgame is that of a brilliant but selfish manchild who changes and grows until he doesn't hesitate to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the entire universe.

BUT THEN THERE'S SPIDER-MAN AGAIN.

spoilers if you haven't seen Spider-Man: Far From Home but like, the entire conflict of that movie was based on two major things: a bunch of disgruntled Stark Industries employees, at least some of whom had to have legitimate, recent grievances (and frankly that whole mess demonstrates--among other things--that Stark Industries must have unforgivably lax security around its arsenal of world-ending weapons); and Tony's decision at some point to essentially REMAKE ULTRON AND THEN DUMP THAT RESPONSIBILITY ON A FUCKING TEENAGER WITH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE WAY OF WARNINGS, TRAINING, OVERSIGHT, OR EVEN BASIC FAILSAFES, like holy shit my computer spends more time making sure I definitely want to delete that file than EDITH does about confirming that yes this random teenager is a legitimate target for IMMEDIATE DEATH. all the other adults involved in this clusterfuck bear a good share of the responsibility for this too, given that not one of them ever seemed to think either "hey, maybe saddling a smart and very good but basically normal sixteen-year-old boy with the power and responsibility (but not the resources or experience) of a grown-ass adult with unlimited resources is not the smartest move here, and yelling at him when he inevitably fucks up this power and responsibility we dumped on him with no training whatsoever is not actually fair or reasonable" or even "maybe before giving a piece of massively powerful and dangerous tech to a sixteen-year-old boy, we should spend at least 15 minutes going over the device's major functions and how to not accidentally kill someone, even if we figure things like ethics and privacy rights and knowing when not to use this tech aren't that important".

but, but, Tony still made the decision to give it to him, and he did so without building in any precautions at all, which is the exact same thing he did in CW/Homecoming with Peter's new suit (yes, the Training Wheels protocol was a good step, but the fact that it could just be turned off that easily--and that Tony isn't shown even trying to tell Peter to use the training programs or safely practice with the suit--shows that it really, really wasn't good enough) except even worse because EDITH is about 100 times more invasive and destructive than the suit. and he pretty much scolded Peter in Homecoming for getting ahead of himself, but then the second Peter did well in a bad situation Tony was right back to making this teenager an official Avenger and giving him all this power and responsibility he'd just decided Peter hadn't really earned, and Peter turned him down because at that point he had a better idea of his own limits and need for growth than Tony did, and then!! in what must have been one of his last acts alive!! Tony dumped an even bigger, more dangerous power/responsibility combo on him!!! way way bigger than the one he'd already turned down and maturely decided he wasn't yet experienced enough to handle!!! without even giving him a chance to say no!!!! and did not take any of that (or the mess with Ultron and the lessons he theoretically learned there, or the mess with the Accords and the lessons he theoretically learned there, or for that matter the lessons he theoretically learned in his three solo movies about treating his employees well and making sure he knows exactly what his company is doing at all times) into account when designing it, handing it off to other adults who also should have been more responsible about it, and leaving it to a teenager against that teenager's stated wishes, thereby ensuring that this teenager will follow Tony's footsteps in being unable to have a normal life!!!!!

...................but, okay, the point of the original post was that Steve is generally deemed to be Always Right and therefore he never has to change, and that makes him unrelatable at best and also not a great character. which...well, that's part of the point, that's why he was picked for Project Rebirth in the first place because he's a good dude dedicated to doing what's right; even before the serum, he was literally willing to die to protect a few people he barely knew (the grenade scene, remember). he was already starting from a point of selflessness and an understanding of responsibility that the others lacked, so it would be tough to give him a similar character arc without undermining or ignoring the whole point of the character. sure, though, even a character like Steve is imperfect and human and bound to be wrong sometimes, and when that happens he should acknowledge he was wrong and take steps to make amends, and if he's never shown doing any of that, it's true that it's not great even if part of the issue is that he's never really put in a position to do so. 

except, except DID YOU ALL COMPLETELY FORGET THE ENDING OF CIVIL WAR

like, sure, if what you wanted was to hear Steve say "I was wrong about everything and Tony was right about everything, and I will humbly submit to whatever you think is best regardless of my own convictions, my very good reasons for having those convictions, and my personal concerns for my friends, or at the very least I will humbly ask for forgiveness and accept whatever you throw at me, because Tony Was Right About Everything," then...yeah, I'm sure it was a disappointment, especially if you figure Tony was right about the Accords and at least the intentions behind Ultron. it's true Steve doesn't really address any of that, which indicates he definitely still believes he’s right about those parts. but...look, the last time he saw Tony, he was fighting to save his lifelong friend from being murdered from a crime he didn't necessarily remember and really wasn't responsible for. once again I don't blame Tony for reacting emotionally and lashing out at the nearest targets instead of the people who were really at fault, but that doesn't change the facts of the situation, which are, Steve was fighting to save Bucky's life. and when he did that by incapacitating Tony, he didn't go any further; he took Bucky and left. and then he almost immediately sent Tony a letter of apology and a means of contacting him in return if an emergency comes up--and again, yes, his apology wasn't "I'm sorry for everything because I was wrong about everything," but it was a genuine, compassionate apology for the ways he'd hurt Tony even if his intentions were basically good. (this of course assumes that he really did know for a fact that Bucky killed the Starks and consciously chose to hide the knowledge from Tony, and frankly I'm not convinced that's true, but it's not really the issue here.) honestly, I thought his letter was kind of funny because it so closely followed the format of the apology-note meme--you know, "I was trying to do X, but I see now that I hurt you because Y" and everything. he didn't apologize for opposing the Accords or protecting Bucky or fighting in Germany so he could get to Siberia in time to stop what he had every reason to believe was a much bigger threat, because all those actions stemmed directly from his convictions and sense of morality and he wouldn't be Steve Rogers or Captain America if he was willing to compromise his most foundational convictions--but he absolutely did apologize for hurting Tony and recognized that he'd made at least one big mistake where Tony was concerned. 

Tony...didn't. even before doubling down on the Accords and Ultron, I don't think he ever really said, hey, at least some of this was my bad; most of what he said boiled down to "okay this situation isn't ideal but I'm sure if I throw more money at it things will work out fine, more or less". in the Raft and in Siberia he got close to saying that maybe he'd been wrong about a few things, but that all went out the window pretty quick, and I don't think there's ever a point where he--just for instance--at least apologizes for trying very very hard to kill Bucky. and by Endgame, apparently he’s pretty much walked back what little he did kinda sorta think he was maybe wrong about. so.

that's...basically what I've got, OP’s interpretation is wrong because their facts are actually wrong and I was apparently annoyed enough to barf out all these words when I could’ve been doing anything else, the end

[asleepinawell]

on reblogging...

When I reblog posts off my dash I often don't even notice who I'm reblogging from--my brain is focused on the content and I've scrolled past the icon/name already. I'm even less likely to notice the urls of the op and commenters. I'm trying to get better at keeping an eye on that. Why?

I've seen a noticeable rise in the number of women positivity posts that link back to radfem and terf blogs. I'm not sure if the number has actually increased or if the terfs have just gotten better at making their transmisogynistic rhetoric seem innocuous on the surface. Women positivity posts aren’t the types of posts I reblog here in general, and anti-men posts (which seem to be terf posts 99.9% of the time and often from bi/pan and/or aphobic blogs as well) aren’t things I would ever reblog regardless of source. So those aren’t the ones I, personally, am too worried about accidentally reblogging, just the ones I see the most. Something to keep in mind for people who do reblog those types of posts.

(The fact that positive posts about women are so often tied to radfem and terf accounts is extremely disturbing. The fact that hating men (not toxic masculinity or the patriarchy, but just all men uniformly) feels like it’s increasingly being embedded into the identity of being a woman and especially a wlw is also disturbing to me. radfem rhetoric is creeping in around the edges and I want nothing to do with it.)

I’m more worried about the truly innocuous posts where the content is a picture of a cat or a funny text post about a random topic. Because I don’t care if the post content is genuinely harmless, the source it comes from is not and I don’t want to promote that person’s platform at all. One of the tricks of spreading propaganda is to pull in an audience based on cute funny things and then expose them to the propaganda once they’re there.

So where I’m going with this is I’m trying to be better at running an eye over usernames. I’m not perfect. My brain spaces out on a regular basis due to a combo of adhd and just being Like That, but I’m working on being more aware. However, if you see something I reblog that comes from a shitty blog (terf, trans/bi/pan/aphobe, exclusionist, racist, the whole ‘queer is a slur’ crowd, otherwise bigoted, etc) and you feel comfortable doing so, please tell me. I always feel weird giving a heads up to other people who I’ve never communicated with so I get that, but this is your permission to tell me. I have chat disabled most of the time, so just send an anon ask. I’ll go look at the post and blog in question and most likely block and delete.

I’m not a discourse blog and I have no intention of becoming one. If you send me shitty discourse asks I will block you and delete them without responding. Same for replies, comments, chat. I don’t talk about this stuff frequently on my blog and I don’t intend to, however I don’t feel comfortable remaining ambiguous about my thoughts on this stuff. I think this post makes my views pretty clear.

[cuban-feminist-that-gives-a-hoot]

I posted 1,036 times in 2021

14 posts created (1%)

1022 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 73.0 posts.

I added 64 tags in 2021

#persona 5 - 13 posts

#leverage - 11 posts

#leverage: redemption - 11 posts

#writing resources - 6 posts

#lol - 5 posts

#trails of cold steel - 5 posts

#shin megami tensei - 4 posts

#star trek - 3 posts

#resident evil - 3 posts

#the untamed - 3 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#also before you all go bring the breach of contract thing with sm ent those were different circumstances and i still agree with jyj on that

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

So, I saw the trailer for the new Mortal Kombat movie.

Why does it look like the fight scenes are going to be good, but everything else is going to be bland as fuck, including the music?

Is it going to be objectively good? I can't say until I watch it. At the very least, all the actors look like they can do the choreography for the fight scenes, which was something that was not a thing in the first movie (Bridgette Wilson was terrible and Linden Ashby, though I loved his acting, also looked iffy).

I already am judging the movie for omitting Johnny Cage, so...

0 notes • Posted 2021-02-19 18:59:26 GMT

#4

So, it is time for some Nocturne.

I had beaten Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, HD Remaster a few days ago and I wanted to let it marinate in my brain before I voiced my thoughts on it.

First thing is that I chose to play this on Merciful difficulty and went for the True Demon Ending. Kept nearly all the names except for the Demifiend's nickname. I chose to nickname him Fuckboy because if he is going to end all of existence, that is definitely some Prime Fuckboy Energy™ right there.

I think I agree with others when they say that Merciful difficulty is too easy. I want to be clear that I normally play games on the easiest difficulty because I'm here for a fun time, not a hard time and if I want a hard time, it's for a different kind of fun time. That being said, trying to outrun Raidou in the Third Kalpa was probably the hardest thing because I had to learn how to outrun the bastard. I had never wanted to punt Gotou more than when he started talking. Not helped that he's voiced by the dude that voiced Noctis in FFXV, so that gives me an extra level of annoyance.

Speaking of the English voice acting, most of it was fantastic. The Demifiend, Chiaki, and Isamu definitely sound like teenagers, Hijiri sounded alright, but Hikawa is the weak point. He's supposed to be terrifying, but he sounds like a fucking grad nerd trying to lecture the Fuckboy™ like he's some fed-up TA stuck doing this for a shitty stipend while looking like the love child between TVXQ from the Keep Your Head Down music video and a doped-up Vegeta. It's fucking hilarious to me.

The other thing I wanted to mention was Isamu's voice, but that's because Robbie Daymond's voice stands out like Johnny Yong Bosch's voice does where if I hear his voice, I know that's him right off the bat. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it also means that if I recognize his voice, it means that my head automatically goes like this: "Fucking Akechi". Make of that what you will.

Besides the voices, the gameplay was fun. It is truly nice to play a game with a turn-based combat system, random encounters, an actual fucking world map, and hidden extra stuff that you can do. God, I miss RPGs having world maps you can travel to and random encounters. Random encounters are fun and worth it.

One of the greatest delights I had was going for that Mara boss battle in Shibuya. Now, I don't know how the dialogue went in the original, but the dialogue in the HD Remaster was so damn good and the delivery was so amazing that, if you're playing this in Japanese, you owe it to yourself to listen to it in English at least once because it is a riot.

My final party wound up being Demifiend, Super Pixie, Raidou, and Black Frost because Super Pixie has OP stats once you get her in the Fifth Kalpa, Raidou is godly, and Black Frost's stats and skills make him worth having. I didn't really explore with the magatama all that much, but that's because I was going physical build and was waiting until I had the right skills. But because I didn't check what each magatama had, I wound up wearing the Gaea magatama after getting it really early and not realizing that it won't give skills until later on. I wound up focus-punching my way through most of the bosses because of that lack of planning. I did get all the magatama this playthrough, but there was one sidequest I missed and I do plan on going back to do it so that I can do a challenge in the game later on.

Overall, it was worth playing it. My only regret is not playing it sooner. Especially when I've had the PS2 physical copy and the PS3 digital copy in my collection for the better part of a decade now at least.

...Better late than never, I suppose.

1 notes • Posted 2021-06-05 04:41:39 GMT

#3

So, I saw the new 2021 Mortal Kombat movie.

It is a competent, well-made movie. That doesn't mean that it's good by any stretch of the imagination. It lacked focus, the soundtrack was shit, and I've thought I'd never dislike an OC character more than Alice from the RE movies, but Cole Young fucking beat that shit.

They did so many characters dirty, from Sonya to Goro to Mileena... so many done in so wrong.

Just... just watch Mortal Kombat Annihilation if you want to watch a bad MK film because at least that one's entertaining, with good music. If you want to watch a good one, then just watch the 1995 MK movie. It has a tighter focus and feels more complete.

2 notes • Posted 2021-04-23 22:00:27 GMT

#2

LMFAO!

How, in the year 2021, is Park Yoochun still able to have a career for him to get sued for breach of contract?

You'd think the meth thing would've destroyed his career, if not the sexual assault accusations, but someone decided, "Yeah, OK, let's give him another chance. I'm sure he won't fuck this up again. Third time's the charm, right?"

How fucking stupid was that businessman for trying to revitalize his career? I'm thinking he is having some serious buyer's remorse right about now.

5 notes • Posted 2021-08-20 03:17:14 GMT

#1

Leverage: Redemption

There will be spoilers. Massive spoilers. Plus some angry ranting. Short answer is I loved it and I so hope they decide on a second season.

Let's get the angry ranting out the way.

1. Some folks are acting religious with their hate for Maria Shipp. Knock it off. I loved her, and not as a romantic thing for Eliot, but more of who she is as an individual. She's someone that has her own convictions, beliefs, and boundaries that she will not cross. Her and Eliot were good for each other right now, but as a forever thing? No. Her being there does not mean that OT3 was being shat on. If anything, it only confirmed it further because the only ones that Eliot could open up to freely are Hardison and Parker. With all the hate on her for some stupid reasons, I honestly want to see more of her to spite the haters. Eliot needs a cop friend too, just like Hardison and Parker have Taggert & McSweeten. For those of you shitting on her because of copaganda, copaganda has always existed in Leverage. It's just that they've also balanced it with a fuck the cops attitude too. Stop it.

2. The OT3 not being explicitly in the text is not queerbaiting. Those saying that shit is fucking wrong. We've gotten more queer rep from this one season than we've gotten from many, many other shows that don't even hit the bar. Please knock it off with that shit. They didn't destroy the OT3. It is still safe, as promised.

3. For those that mourn the loss of Nathan Ford, I'm going to need you all to recognize that killing him off was the right choice, both for the story and for behind-the-scenes reasons. Nate was my favorite too, but his death was the right choice. I'm not seeing that much here on Tumblr, but on Reddit? Hoo boy... *sigh*

Now that the angry is done, let's talk about the good.

1. Harry Wilson is such a delight for a character and I adore him. He has done some really, really shady and terrible shit, yet he's trying so hard to do good. If it were another actor in the role instead of Noah Wyle, it would not have been as good or convincing as the lawyer looking for redemption after causing so many, many issues with his policy of no sides picked. While I am sad that he is leaving the crew to be a better, nicer lawyer, I do hope he comes back to do consulting work. Everyone needs a little Fixer in their lives.

2. Breanna is a darling and I am so glad that we have her. Watching her grow and improve has been an amazing journey. If there is a second season, I so hope we not only get more of her, but I also hope she continues her relationship with Emily. They are just the cutest couple!

3. The team from Leverage: Con Artists being canon to the Leverage universe is just such a happy, happy thing and now gives me a reason to watch it, if only to know the context.

4. The Great Train Job needs to come with a trigger warning because that beginning intro was not even remotely OK for folks that are coming into it blind. Yet that was the episode that gave me the most satisfaction (besides The Harry Wilson Job) in watching the mark getting utterly destroyed.

5. The Bucket Job is by far the sweetest episode out of the whole season. That episode is just pure magic, from start to finish. Definitely one my top 3 for the entire season.

6. The brief moments that we had Hardison were fantastic and I do hope that we get more of him, should there be a 2nd season. Because you want to know what's better than a 5-Person Found Family Crew? A 6 Person Found Family Crew!

Loved Leverage: Redemption and I want more. Please let this show do so well that they'll give us a 2nd season. And if they don't, then it still ends on a satisfying note.

9 notes • Posted 2021-10-11 02:14:50 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[omnigon]

I mean... not really... the problem here is that I’m terrified of people on this fucking website. I really haven’t HAD my conception of gender challenged because I USED to believe in it, but then I realised it actually doesn’t make sense. I also believe that everything in the human body has a physical cause. I also dislike believing in things that don’t add up just because people insist that they do. Unless some day it’s discovered that it actually, genuinely is a thing instead of some esoteric self-conception like otherkin I can’t bring myself to give in to it. It’s not about nonbinary people and their lives, it’s about how this website punishes people who disagree with the zeitgeist. How there are people who, when I SAY to them that I don’t believe it, will end being absolutely horrible to me. And I will never have any way of knowing until it’s too late.

So, unfortunately you’re wrong. You don’t know my history. I used to ID as nonbinary years ago, until I realised I’m very much just a man in the wrong body. It was after this point that I really really wondered whether or not any of my previous ID was based in fact, or in tumblr pushing an anti-male agenda that made me subconsiously avoid my actual gender for fear of criticism (”If I’m a man then all those anti-man posts end up being about me, and I’m too weak-hearted for that.”) and I feel like this is something that never gets talked about, The massive inconsistensies in nonbinary labels also makes me question the legitimacy of any of it. It’s very easy to choose to identify as something. It really is. I honestly refuse to believe that anyone is born nonbinary the way people are born trans, UNLESS, (and this is the only thing that would ever make me believe) it turns out that atypical gender dysphoria is a thing like ordinary gender dysphoria. But from what I’ve read (and I’m not an ~expert~ or anything) that doesn’t seem to be the case. So... in my opinion... it’s a choice. In my opinion MOST people who ID as nonbinary are just ordinary trans people who haven’t realised it yet. If atypical gender dysphoria is a thing, I doubt as many people would suffer from it like normal dysphoria, unless it turns out to be more common. I don’t know. This is entirely speculation, because we actually don’t know enough to make the call. But on here, obviously, EVERYONE knows it’s totally real and if you disagree then you are, without a doubt, a filthy transphobe who should die. It really reminds me of religion in this case, something I vehemently oppose.

Also my mental health really doesn’t matter right now. I would feel this shitty even if I were overeating. It took me like 5 hours of sleep to realise why any of this is even happening, and that I’ve done this exact fucking thing before. Every time I get even a LITTLE close to someone on here, and I mean even a little, a thing goes off in my brain that makes me think of why they would hate me. With the last person I was ‘friends’ with on here it’s because I renounced feminism (for egalitarianism), and that person is super into social justice, and that was during a period of my life when social justice things on here felt like an obligation instead of anything I was genuine about. But I knew that if I were against feminism they’d hate me and think I was a piece of shit! So I had to cut them off. Then this, someone who was kinda close mutuals with me, I couldn’t get over the fact that we disagree on this thing, and me being terrified me, I had to cut him off too.

This is going to happen to the next person who tries to get even remotely close to me. I’ll accept it for a while, then my brain will do a little flip in my head and tell me to hate myself for having one or two differences, because that person would surely already hate me if they knew. Same shit different day. The only winning move is not to play, clearly. The problem is, I never remember that I do this. Then, when I’m trying to interact with someone, suddenly I feel shame and guilt instead of fun, and the only way to stop it is to push the person away, ‘cause I know that’s what they would want if they knew about it. Rinse and repeat, forgetting every time, because my brain’s ability to remember shit chronologically is so unbelievably shot, until today I actually FORGOT that I used to HAVE a close-ish friend on here. It doesn’t help that I have a very fucked up past where I was in a bizarre, outlandish situation as a child and I did bad things because I was in such a bad environment. I don’t believe in free will anymore (I’m a determinist and I believe that everything has already happened in the sense that the conditions for it are set up right now, and time is mostly a perceptual illusion, and that all human thoughts and ideas come from the subconsious processes of the human brain, the innerworkings of which we may never fully quantify) but I still blame myself for what I chose to do out of anger. It’s the sort of thing that will definitely make me push someone away at some point.

I’m just going to give up. I can’t actually like people because I’m not good enough for anyone. I’m a constant disappointment to myself. I’m a failure. I genuinely shouldn’t even be USING this site because the ‘social’ aspect of social media really flies over my head, to the point where my primary usage of this site is actually to archive posts I like, not share them. I’ve known this for a while, but the dumb monkey part of my brain is still ooh-ooh-ah-ahing for other people’s attention, even though not only is it fake and hollow, I really, really don’t deserve even that, clearly. I can’t make friends. Either I’m too stupid for someone, or when I DO get a little close, I sabotage it by pushing them away before they can even get to know me. I don’t even know why I do it, except I’m terrified of being hated. That’s the bottom line, that’s the REAL reason I’m twisted up about all this. I feel like I have many hateworthy aspects and this website seems to punish those who refuse to conform. There’s clearly no point in me trying to find friendship. I need to realise that at this point it’s just not going to happen. I have a desire but no drive, I never, ever talk to new people (Or even people I’ve talked to before) because they terrify me (I mean, what if they’re a genius or a great artist or an asshole or something) so I just sit here and pretend that people I’ve never talked to actually give a shit about me. It’s pathetic. I need to just stop, and realise that NO ONE actually gives a shit about me, there’s no reason to, and since I’m going to ruin it ANYWAY I may as well spare myself the ache and not even bother trying.

I have no idea if this is how other people experience this shit website, I really don’t. I just know that I feel like I’ve been stuck on this site for so long I don’t have any alternatives (and IRL is out of the question). I also have no idea what I’m “supposed” to be doing here or whether I’m using the fucking website correctly. I just... I don’t know. I’m going to give up. Reblog cat videos. Speak my mind even though I know some day an anon will tell me to KMS and I’ll have to actually consider it because everyone else is worth so much more than me, if one of them wants me dead, there HAS to be a good, well-thought-out reason for it. Because everyone is smarter than I am (and I mean fucking everyone I am dumb as dirt). I want to not give a shit and just do me, but whenever I see a post I disagree with, I imagine myself reblogging with my dissenting opinion, and then being made fun of by OP, losing my followers and ending up getting harassed by people who know literally nothing else about me. It’s not like this is outlandish, anyway, we all know how tumblr is. I just feel like once I’m Hated I no longer get to be a person, so even my suffering doesn’t matter. I mean something like this has happened before, but thankfully it was small. I told someone that what they said about people with my specific internal experiences on this one specific thing was actually really untrue, because I experience the thing they said was impossible and just a fad. They told me that not only was the sad, crying message I sent them the funniest thing they’d seen all week, but that I was actually misinterpreting my internal experiences. Now? I never, ever, ever talk about my system and when I DO it’s super short and covert. Because I’m afraid of being called fake. So I guess I’m a hypochrite in this regard. Just proves how shitty I am. Doesn’t change the fact that this website is fucking awful about disagreements. I mean, after that exchange I got an ask about something I said in the PM, which meant that I got screenshotted and made fun of. I guess I kind of deserved it for being openly upset while disagreeing with someone. Obviously on the Internet the whole “U mad?” thing has been going on for years. So as a highly emotional fucking person I don’t GET to be a part of disagreements, because the way I do it is wrong.

Because of all this shit, the shit I went through on this site and IRL, I have learned that I don’t matter, my thoughts and feelings don’t matter, and my wellbeing doesn’t matter. Thankfully, I’m a nihilist who believes that nothing has any inherent meaning or value, everything just Is, so me being human actually means nothing more than the sum of my parts+ my consciousness, making me worth about as much as any average mammal on planet Earth. I don’t think any one really matters though. I mean sure to each other we do, but that’s only because as a social species we have a natural altrustic drive. This is why we THINK we matter when in reality we are animate dust, held together by tape and glue, kept conscious by an organ that has literally gotten us here through sheer trial-and-error. I always hate saying this stuff because I know it makes me sound cold, but I’ve seen the darkest parts of people. I’ve seen humans treated like literal garbage. If humans had inherent value this would be impossible. Just like if God were real this would be impossible. It’s stupid how caught up I am in how other people feel about me when I know objectively, when I’m in the ground, none of it will matter. That, cosmically, none of anything matters. Actually, when I was a young teenager I was so, so distraught by my cosmic insignificance. I can’t help but be a nihlist. I mean, now I’ve come to terms with it and rejected the ideas of God or an afterlife specifically because they place undue importance on humans.

So I’m going to keep sitting here feeling like shit because at this point I have no fucking clue what I could do to feel better that doesn’t require effort I can’t expend right now. I’m not going to fucking eat because I really feel like I don’t fucking need it OR deserve it. Besides, I don’t do this very often, and I was a huge asshole by cutting him off like that. I have no idea how he feels about it but I know that this is the end. And I hate it. It hurts. It hurts but I can never, ever make myself not do it, because the alternative is stewing in anxiety and feeling increasingly nervous about lying by omission by not telling people how I really feel about things. I’m going to be fine, I already covered my forearms in bruises (and stupid dainty crushable little wrists to a lesser degree) so it’s not like witholding food is going to make things even worse somehow. In fact, sometimes when I’m hungry I can’t cry at all, so really I think it’s a good thing to punish myself.

Besides, I’m a really, really shitty person and I don’t deserve to live.

[kingloptr]

i wish i had the guts to host a sort of...idk ‘OP Boom’ event almost like a solo EVERY-MAN-FOR-HIMSELF!! Big Bang, where no matter how shitty I (and any other participants) would think their stuff is, for a full 24 hrs, pledge to only post original posts, drawing or writing any fanwork otherwise, with some lofty af goal like to ‘win’ you must post at least 15 posts that are all you, and with enthusiasm to create shit even if you’ve never done anything at all before for fandom, or if you’ve been considering yourself ‘not good enough’ or creative enough. 

a whole 24 hrs where theres only purely your work, writing or crafting or drawing, just pump it the fuck out regardless of how shitty. even if you weren’t ever intending to impress anyone it would be the most cathartic exercise ever. Just. Produce content rlly hardcore to make something you’re at least remotely proud of for all the posts, in a condensed amount of time where lots of others are doing the same ~ And then the next day we all browse the event tag if we want and spread each other’s reckless abandon of forced creativity as we please?..~

imagine how freeing that might feel, to let go of random self conscious efforts just bc its an event and it truly doesnt matter bc the rule is to not care how ‘good’ it is or how much you just PRODUCE nonstop, and even what you think is just shitty stuff would be evidence you worked past that fear of not being taken seriously bc it isn’t srs! just collective fun whether you try your best to impress ppl or not? Idk.... I’ll probs do this myself for one day, just not allow myself to reblog anything i didnt create, but have a set goal of 10 to 20 Original Creative Fic or Art pieces in one day, no matter how much i might think it isn’t worth posting ~ Like...an event like this I already imagine as being aimed at ppl who wish they posted more original stuff but dont wanna put all that work into a thing only to have it get one note or something bc of small follower bases. I know there are plenty of ppl who can and do just post steady content every day so it seems like something easy or more special. But an event like this would probs get me off my ass no matter what and I personally would be super excited to see a whole swath of ppl just create with abandon for a full day. We’d for sure discover some new Gems. Discourse would probably hit the roof somehow on an event like this too but IT WOULD BE SO AWESOME TO SEE SO MUCH NEW PRODUCTION FROM PPL WHO DON’T THINK THEIR STUFF IS INTERESTING AND PRETTY ENOUGH, BUT BC THIS IS A WELCOMING EVENT, HUMOROUS OR NOT, THEIR STUFF FINALLY SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY EVEN ITS ONLY TO BE LAUGHED AT IN GOOD NATURE ~

Any Takers? Should I host an event? If you have any other ideas to fit with it or some-such hit me up ~ I’d be super happy to discover so much new creativity and boost it to a blog audience ~

[dreadhaus-literature]

{A/N}

I~ truthfully don’t know why I came to write. I’ve just been kinda doing my own thing tonight, gave myself a manicure (would have done a pedicure too but it’s cold and I have sockies on) and otherwise was messing about in my closet. Having one of those rare restless moods where I don’t really want to do anything, but y’all know me. I can’t not do something.

So here I am. Doing something.

Uh, well first I suppose I oughta address I hyped up coming out of hiatus today and then, lmao, didn’t. I opened a document to write initially but I just wasn’t feeling FL was connected, so I went to talk to Monica about how things are going. No sense beating a dead horse, we all know what goes with FL and why stuff gets the way it does. So at this point, I’ve just set my pen down until I’m told to pick it up again. Not going to put the blog in hiatus, just don’t expect regular updates anymore, I guess? I’m finding I get discouraged trying to do this alone, so if I can’t do it with my partner, I won’t be doing it at all--and that’s coming from a place of support.

FL isn’t FL without Monica, nor should it be.

I’ll give it a few months and if things keep stagnating or I haven’t gotten a chance to write for FL anymore, I’ll take a look at other stuff to write. I don’t want to not write through 2019 like I did the past three years, I meant what I said at the start of the year.

My whole inspiration for what was going to be today’s prompt was Carol, actually--because I watched the red carpet premiere for Captain Marvel earlier tonight when it was live. Haha, I cried three fucking times. Three! First time was watching everyone SO hype for Carol, like the little girl in me could not handle seeing so many people so excited about someone I’ve loved since I was a kid. I’ve said it before, several times, but I never thought I’d get to see Carol on the big screen. Now, I get so excited I cry, lmao.

The second time I cried was when the youngest actress (who plays Carol as a little girl) was doing an interview and she said how important and special the movie was for her--again, the little girl in me could relate plus Mama Bear was all aflutter at seeing this little angel talk about how excited she was to see another female superhero get her own movie. I remember she said something, “Now every little girl in the world knows she’s special!”

Sweet Christ I’m about to get teary again remembering that. THIS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT MOVIE. 😤

...And I cried when Brie came out, lmao. I was not ready. She wore a dress full of sunbursts/stars, for Carol’s insignia. 💖💖💖

I could not handle that, like one of Brie’s first lines during her red carpet interview was that Carol changed her life, and my heart about shattered. You can tell Brie is proud to play Carol, and she worked her ass off to be able to do so--and I have so much respect for actors who commit to these roles like that. These characters mean the world to me and I love when the actor who plays them takes that seriously. You can tell, listening to Brie, she does. It was genuine, and I have renewed respect for her and I sincerely hope she knows how much support she has for this movie, despite all the fuckhead trolls out there.

So yeah, I cried for like, an hour? Haha, no, that’s an exaggeration and even if it wasn’t, it was all happy tears. I’m just so excited about this movie and to be somewhere I never thought I’d be. It isn’t to diminish, like, Tony or Peter or Logan but I always knew there’d be Iron Man or Spider-Man or X-Men movies--but there are others, like Thor or T’Challa or Carol, who I never anticipated seeing on the big screen and it’s so huge to be here.

I’m so grateful that we are here.

I’ve kinda just been all over the comicverse today, actually, looking at stuff--well, haha, in the two biggest backyards, rather. I only really stray outside of Marvel and DC to visit Anung & Co, but y’all know me. I’ve got my faves and I stick to my familiars--which up until very recently just included Marvel, lmao. But DC’s in there now, obviously, so I do wander about there from time to time. I feel like I visit a new school or some shit every time I do this, because I recognize some folks now but I run into others and I’m just like, yeah, i have no fucking idea who you are, haha. My DC coloring book came and it was vastly different from flipping through my Marvel book; I could name every single person for my Marvel book but I think I can count on my fingers and toes the DC folks I know. BUT I AM TRYING. Haha, I am learning, and it’s fun for a lot of reasons. Say this all the time but I am grateful to Monica for getting me to stop staring down my nose at the lot of them. I was missing out.

But I uh, well I’m noticing that a lot of what I like...not a lot of other DC fans do, lmao. And I’m not going to be tooting my own horn over here--or Avery’s rather, because I gave that back to her--but I just mean, I was taken aback by how, uh, upset some DC fangirls are about things that I liked or enjoyed? And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it happens on the Marvel side too. People are opinionated and I usually fall to the counter-culture side of arguments. I guess because I’m a wide-eyed newbie to the DCverse, I wasn’t thinking about it. Okay, like, for example--

My first unpopular opinion is that Arthur Curry looks better in the comics than the DCEU.

“Whaaaaaat?! BUT DOT, ARE YOU SAYING JASON MOMOA ISN’T HOT?!”

I’m not here to say Jason isn’t attractive or that he doesn’t do Arthur justice--but I’mma stand here and on the same hand say Tony Stark looks better in the comics than in the MCU. One, because I’m a huge gigantic lesbian, and two, because I always think the comics look better. Like, you will never hear me say otherwise, in terms of looks. Real life cannot compete with fantasy; characters can be drawn perfectly and try as we might to emulate that in real life, we never can.

It has nothing to do with the actors, nothing to do with Jason or RDJ, it’s all about the comic character they play--which a lot of fangirls seem to forget when it comes to these live-action portrayals, might I add.

And so uh, when I wanna look at Arthur, like everyone else in the comics, I’d rather see his comic iteration. And ain’t nobody here for comic Aquaman for some reason. I never see him around and it sucks. I guess I shouldn’t judge but I do a little. Like, y’all been sleepin’ on Arthur or mocking him for fucking years and even I knew that, from my DC-hating lawn chair. But now that Jason plays him, now he’s acceptable? Now he’s okay?

Arthur is literally in the same boat as Loki, like if you don’t love them at their comicverse then you don’t get to love them in the movies. Ya don’t love Arthur, you love Jason. And I just don’t get that. Jason’s a beefcake and y’all know I’m here for some bulk but if we’re comparing looks comic Arthur is who I’m diving into the briny deep for every single day of the year.

^ LIKE THIS GIF IS SAVED IN MY PHONE LIBRARY, I LOVE IT SO MUCH how do you not find this sexy, like I am a gay woman and he could part me like the Red Sea.

Anyway.

My 2nd apparent unpopular opinion is that Edward Nygma, Mr. Riddler, looks super scrumptious in the Batman, War of Jokes and Riddles arc. I went to look at him for...reasons, earlier tonight, and I was expecting others to agree with me and was pretty stunned that everyone in the tag was making fun of him. I felt like Peter, like I went, “Riddle me this, how hot is Edward in this arc, guys, amirite?” And I held up my hand for a high five and got left hanging by the entire rest of the fandom--Monica not included because she’s above the fandom on her lofty angel cloud.

And I don’t give a shit, y’all know I hate popular things and I’m not complaining about this, I’m talking about it because I’m still not over my surprise. I’m aware I don’t like conventionally attractive types, I have this thing with unique bone structure or just unique appearances to begin with but I didn’t think Edward fell into that. I just thought he was handsome, like...at the risk of embarrassing myself but I found myself staring at him a lot during the arc when Monica was reading it to me because it was the kind of attractive that kept catching my eye. And so to hear so many people saying how ugly he looked or how they hated that iteration of him and I was like...lmao, am I missing something?? There’s every chance I am, I am very new to this party.

But I’m not new to the general premise of finding someone attractive so to look me in my retinas and tell me this--

This is not an entire look? Y’all seriously gonna hit the pass button on this particular Nygma?

This--

This is ugly, to you?

??????????

I’M NOT JUST USING QUESTION MARKS BECAUSE IT’S EDWARD I’M BEING SERIOUS, I am seriously confused by this. I see people posting photo sets of him in this arc and I wanna reblog them but they’re being shitty/sarcastic/mean about his appearance and i can’t delete OP’s unnecessary commentary.

I just can’t believe people think he looks ugly here. 😗 I can’t believe this particular opinion is an unpopular one...but whatever it’s my opinion and I’ll just sit on this island with my giant cardboard cutout of him. I don’t need y’all.

Man, and I thoroughly enjoyed that arc and so many people hated it, lmao. It may be because I’m new--actually, no. I’m not giving the fandom the benefit of the doubt for that one. Monica and I read that arc and while I didn’t have a ton of Batman history to base it on, it was solid writing and it was enjoyable to read. I think it comes down to that everyone is so quick to shit all over anything, anymore. Everyone is so fucking miserable, lmao, like it’s so chic to hate everything that’s put in front of you. It reminds me of trying to serve a toddler lunch. I can still remember trying to appease my little sister’s picky ass tummy when she was a baby, even things I knew for a fact she oughta like or that she did like, she’d smack off her high chair and cry about wanting something else--so she could repeat it when I set something new down. It’s the same fucking thing. As someone who is pretty happy with pretty much anything, it makes me anxious, like I worry everyone hating everything is gonna make content creators stop doing things. Why should they keep on, all you wanna do is bitch about anything they do? I wouldn’t write if I got that many complaints about my perfectly good stories. It’s...aggravating, why people can’t just be happy.

Which~ brings me to my third unpopular opinion, that I know Monica shares with me--BatCat sucks. Like, it’s a crappy pairing. It’s in the same boat as Peter & MJ, or Matt & Karen, or Tony & Pepper--I am not writing their dumbass ship name. I only wrote BatCat because the ship name is cute and that’s 90% because it has cat in it and I love kitties.

Anyway.

I see...so much support for this pairing and I’m like...y’all know she left him at the altar, right? Broke his heart? I really don’t care why she did it, there’s not going to be a single reason she could give that would make it okay in my book. I don’t know Selina all that well and I don’t actually dislike her like I do MJ or Karen or Pepper but I do dislike that I’ve been told she does this to him all the time. Everyone knows I have trust issues and someone flaking or betraying me constantly would drive me...haha, batty.

It’s 8AM leave me alone.

In all seriousness, it really makes me question the sort of girlfriend some girls think they are. I’m a feminist through and fucking through but that doesn’t mean I have to support shit-ass behavior and I don’t tolerate foolishness. As I said above, she could show up in a few issues and say there was some reason why she did it, some noble reason to do with Bane (seriously what the hell is he doing, I know he’s up to some shit) but you let your man know. You let your partner know, you don’t leave them hurting. There’s no fucking excuse for that. I’m a sensitive bitch and I’m 100% fine to admit that and admit that is where I’m coming from but I get so tired of women being selfish in comics, like why do you think it’s acceptable to act like this? I don’t know the nuances of Bruce and Selina’s relationship very well but like I said, I know she betrays him or leaves him a lot and that flaky shit gonna turn me off just as fast as when I saw Joker uncaring about Harley’s love. There are some things I just can’t truck with and that’s one of them.

I shouldn’t be surprised there’s so much love for this pairing, so many people are pushing for them to be married and I shouldn’t be shocked--Tony/Pepper and Peter/MJ is super fucking popular but that doesn’t...make them good pairings. You don’t treat your partner the way these women do. You just...don’t. I used to hate Bruce, h-a-t-e him, but it’s polar opposite at this point. He about did me in, initiating all those “I love yous,” and she broke his heart and I just...fwah. The fastest way to make me love you is to give me a reason to take care of you, I have learned.

Shit like these unsupportive relationships for people who give and give until they literally bleed flares my Mama Bear up bad.

I went from hating Bruce to this--

AND THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT, WHAT’S DONE IS DONE. Bruce can protect Gotham, that’s fine, but I guess my black ass finna be there when he gets home to protect him.

THIS IS WHERE WE ARE NOW.

My poor future children are fin’ta be smothered.

So yeah, I kinda went off on a tangent there and I initially...didn’t mean to, lmao. I’m sure there’s other shit I’m missing in terms of my opinions on DC, and I could go on for sixteen years about my Marvel shit, but I’ve...rambled on long enough.

Good night, my loves~♥

[fair-fae]

You know, I'm not a drama person, I don't like it, but it came up on my dash so much that I kind of had to read it. All of that nonsense could've been avoided if you didn't even take it to the public. Judging people for THEIR characters that THEY made and can do WHATEVER the hell they want with them? Oh woo ho good job, you're so popular for taking the "barrage" of it. No. all it did was prove that you're a D-bag and I've got a nice, long list of people to block now and avoid contact with.

Okay, anon. I haven’t bothered setting the record straight with most of this shit, because I know folks like you will continue to believe what you want to believe and hear what you want to hear, just like you’re doing now. But I’ll bite. You’d think all of you getting onto your soapbox about how you shouldn’t judge or attack others wouldn’t keep talking shit about a situation you know nothing about and/or are terribly misinformed about. So I’ll enlighten you with what actually happened.

A while back, the person in question got into an argument with some people on the RPC, trying to tell them that their interpretation of the lore was wrong. Rather than leaving it at that, when he effectively got shut down there, he proceeded to take a screenshot of the conversation and post it on his tumblr, complete with a rant about the people who disagreed with him, their opinions are so wrong and awful, how dare they disagree with him, etc. essentially playing the victim when he was the one to try to badger them for their opinions in the first place. He also left their names, icons, signatures, etc. in full view.I responded and told him he probably shouldn’t be trying to harass any other people about the lore considering his own character concept (thus, you would think, making my opinion on his character pretty clear). Why? Because it’s fucking true.I don’t give a shit about the lore or whether anyone follows it. Probably every single one of my own characters at least bends the lore. But at least have the self-awareness and respect for your fellow role-players to say “yeah, my character breaks the lore” or not get your jimmies rustled every time someone says “oh, yeah, his character is lore breaking.” You wanna break the lore? Cool. Own up to it. And if you do break the lore, don’t try to force everyone else into following it–especially when you can’t even admit you break lore and instead stretch the lore to try so hard to justify your entirely lore-breaking character concept. Don’t try to heckle people for presumably doing what you do but won’t admit. Granted, these people weren’t even breaking lore anyway, which makes his insistence that they were even more ridiculous.So after some excuses about how he was trying to start some intellectual discussion or something and not just drag these people despite featuring their identities and primarily just complaining about them throughout the post, he admitted he should have at least edited out their names and apologized. Great! You’d think that should be the end of it. I didn’t have anything against him at that point, but also had no desire/reason to associate with him, so I didn’t. A couple months go by. Some post comes across my dash. A girl in the community is doxxing her online ex-boyfriend in a callout post about him for unexpectedly breaking up with her because she “thinks” he was lying to her about serious issues and “believes” he was cheating on her. Because I’m a loud and opinionated person, and because that’s some heinous thing to do, I spoke out against it (via a post on my own blog without naming names, mind you, because I’m not going to hijack someone else’s post with negativity or call them out by name). The girl found it, assumed it was about herself, flipped out, and then of course I was the bad guy for saying doxxing isn’t okay. And then the person in question joins in. Not even to discuss the topic at hand, but to dredge up the old drama about how I was so mean to him and he did nothing wrong, etc. A pretty crappy 180 turn for a person who apologized and made it seem like there were no hard feelings, but whatever. Someone saw that he obviously didn’t like me, and seized the chance to try to talk shit and spread rumors because they knew he’d give them the platform. They sent him some anon about how I hate women (lmao). And of course, he published it, with no skepticism or disagreement, only more commentary about how I’m mean and awful. I went to respond, only to find myself blocked. So I went on about my life because it’s not that big of a deal, but hey. The moment you talk shit about me, especially in a venue where I can’t respond, especially facilitating some lies and BS rumors, especially after leading me to believe we’d made amends–you aren’t off limits. You don’t get spared niceness and politeness. Is that mean and petty? Probably.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’ve never claimed to be a nice person.Now, to the horrible, awful thing I did to make this “public.” Fast forward to yesterday. I’d kept my mouth shut and left him alone. In a section of the RPC that doesn’t get a ton of traffic, largely because you have to make an account on the website and then manually opt in to this specific forum, several of us were discussing an absolutely awful person which is an unrelated story I won’t get into. Someone asked something along the lines of, “Are you guys talking about Underaged Looking Allagan Voidsent Chimera Demon Guy?” I responded with basically “No, we’re not talking about Underaged Looking Allagan Voidsent Chimera Demon Guy.” And that was it. We moved on with the conversation because he wasn’t who we’d been talking about. His name, tumblr, server info, in game race, class, etc. was all never given. No identifiable information beyond a very brief and tongue-in-cheek description of his RP character comprised of words taken directly from his own wiki, tumblr info, talk of his own character and RP posts.Someone saw the conversation, and based on our intentionally shitty description, was able to accurately guess who we were talking about and send him an anon to tell him about it. You’d think that would be pretty telling about his own RP, and this anon’s interpretation of it. He answered the anon in a long rant about me that featured both my in game name and my tumblr handle. In case you need me to spell this out for you, he went public with it first. I’ll also remind you that I was blocked, so I wasn’t/couldn’t be following him, and I was not properly @tagged in this rant, so I never would have seen it unless someone told/linked me, or someone I follow eventually reblogged it. And I honestly can’t imagine the level of narcissism it takes to write a long personal post full of wangst and victim-playing every time you hear a person had something negative to say about you or your RP character (not even by name–and by picking words from his own descriptions of his character), especially a person you have had issues with in the past and who you openly shit-talked yourself prior. Who does that? Lord knows my blog would be overflowing. Not everyone will like you, especially not people you jabbed at first. Especially not with an off the wall RP concept. Especially not with you trying to pass that concept is lore abiding and just “unusual.” Especially not with you trying to tell other people they’re “wrong” about the lore. Especially not with your character being a squicky, walking fetish and immortal jailbait. And that’s not even touching other things people have told me about this person that rubbed them the wrong way. Move on with your life.However, I found out about the post thanks to the OP himself when he unblocked me just to send me the link to the post and then before I could even read/respond to the post, sent me a barrage of IM’s still playing the innocent victim which is grating enough on its own but also included him straight up lying about ever posting/saying anything about me, insisting he’d done nothing to me, had nothing against me, this was so out of the blue and uncalled for, etc. When I pointed out this wasn’t the case, that I had seen and read the posts firsthand because blocking me doesn’t prevent me from seeing his posts, he began to lie instead about the contents of said posts and pulled some gaslighting bullshit about how I had just “misread” them, all the while either willfully or coincidentally not seeming to understand anything I said to him (I mentioned him publishing the anon about how I hate women at least twice and the response was always “I never said you hate women!!” Well no shit). He kept insisting that I had “gone behind his back” and that if I had a problem I should “say it to his face” despite the fact he’d had me blocked and that I’m not a douchey enough person to try to contact him despite that, and despite the fact that he had “gone behind my back” and not “said it to my face” twice now prior, and had done just that with his post about the folks from the RPC as well.He also insisted that the tumblr post was meant just to innocently “bring the issue to my attention to clear things up” despite me having no way to see it on my own unless by coincidence, and despite him proving to be willing and able to send me IM’s instead, which you’d think could render the need for a public post moot. When I pointed this out, he promptly deleted the post, lest anyone else see through his bullshit to what he was really trying to do.After my initial response to his wall of IM’s, he sent another wall this time with more insults and accusations, and promptly blocked me so I couldn’t respond. So yes, I made a vaguepost, I know, how awful, how dare I. A vague post vague enough that only someone who had seen his post, or who heard about it from him otherwise, would know who and what it was referencing. Until he responded to it himself, that is and unblocked me again to send me more angry messages to which I responded by permanently blocking him instead because this game of blocking and unblocking sure was getting old.Cue his charming friends sweeping in to tell me to eat a dick, making false accusations against my RP partner and I, sending me threats on Discord, telling people I flashed my breasts for money, etc. And the other person? The one who brought him up in the first place who I had only been responding to? Whose name he was given, was aired in the same public post on his blog as mine? As far as I know, she hasn’t gotten any hate, probably not a single message. And I’m glad, because she shouldn’t get any, she doesn’t deserve it. But at the same time, sure seems sketchy that the person who did the same exact thing as me–and who did it first–has not provoked anyone’s ire, not even been messaged. The public post in reply to the anon who named her, even, was aimed 100% at me. Now isn’t that funny. It’s almost like this was an excuse for people who already had beef with me to try to take shots at me and pretend it was justified. It’s almost like all you anon keyboard warriors don’t even know how this started or what actually happened.And now I’m going to talk about something else. You cannot do “whatever the hell you want” with your character. RP is a two-way (or more) street. There is a real person behind each and every character. These people are looking for fun just like you, and are every bit as deserving, and your fun shouldn’t impede on theirs. We are all allowed equal parts of fun.So when people play their weird ass lolicon/shotacon/pedobait characters, who is having fun? What if the other person in the RP was sexually abused as a child and you’re dredging up terrible old memories for them and making light of their pain? What if they’re a parent worried for their child, or worse, the parent of a child who’s already been abused? What if they’re an actual pedophile and seeing you RP this is tempting them, making them think they’re desires are normal and okay? Hell, what if they’re a goddamn ordinary person who finds it creepy and uncomfortable?What if the fetishized, futa ERP avatar is interacting with someone who is trans or nonbinary or intersex IRL? What if it’s triggering them (in the genuine, real sense of the word)? What if the walking affront against the lore character talking about being an Voidsent Half-Primal Garlean Spy in the middle of the Quicksand is ruining everyone’s immersion–particularly when they refuse to play along as others respond realistically IC and try to kill them or arrest them or kick them out? What if the OP af infinitely-stronger-than-everyone-else-around-him character is making the RP unfun for every other RPer involved because their characters can’t do anything but get beaten up or bow to his whims unless they stoop to godmodding or suddenly beefing up their own character?People can and will judge your character. Those judgments are usually best left kept themselves or quietly shared between trustworthy friends. But when your character trespasses on the OOC fun of the role-players around you? Sorry, my guy, people have every right to speak up. And all this nonsense? All this nonsense was a small handful of people who were already pretty nasty showing their true colors and getting told to pipe the fuck down. A pretty good outcome, if you ask me. So, please, block me, anon. My life will be better without idiots like you in it, and the same probably goes for anyone else you intend to block. Your nameless, ignorant, anonymous presence will not be missed–or noticed, for that matter.