#Thoughts ? opinions? criticisms?

[son-of-avraham]

I'm in many leftist spaces and I've seen many goyim in these spaces complaining about how often jews talk about leftist antisemitism.

The thing is that this is the consequence of claiming to be advocates or in support of another group of people - when you ostensibly prove you aren't for us, we're going to be harsher than we are to people who never pretended in the first place.

For an analogy, here's a similar situation: I am harsher toward "pro-trans" people who are transphobic than I am to people who are not. This is because the pro-trans person told me they were better than that. I am already aware that the anti-trans person is going to be anti-trans. Their anti-transness is self-evident. What isn't self-evident is a person who claims to be pro-trans and then proves otherwise.

This post is addressed toward leftist spaces because I occupy these spaces the most. It makes me wonder just how safe I am in these spaces when leftist begrudgingly acknowledge that this conversation keeps happening. I feel like a lot of leftists treat those of us who open these conversations like we're an "I left the left" rightist when... Most of us are still in leftist spaces. We have not left the left and through pretending we have, you absolve yourself the feeling of responsibility.

[vaguesnail]

this is the best thing that's ever happened

[nonsensology]

Later at the wish granting ceremony, CEO Magnifico announces he’s greenlit Ice Age 6 and five more live-action remakes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

There are so many cancelled and unrealized projects that Disney is sitting on, that they do not benefit from in any way by keeping them locked up tight. They really ought to just let them go if they don't have any intentions of doing anything with them.

Incidentally, I could never agree with the mentality of “Magnifico is actually the hero, and Asha is the TRUE villain” that a lot of people seem to have. I drew my comic based on this post. I feel like if more people had been aware of this possible interpretation, they wouldn’t have sympathized with Magnifico.

Does Wish have bad writing? Yes, it does. And it’s because of that bad writing that every single character suffers. What I think happened is that, as a result of said bad writing, Asha became a character that’s so uncompelling and lacks uniqueness that she ends up a blank slate for audiences to project their frustrations with the movie onto. King Magnifico on the other hand, is probably the most interesting and entertaining character, due in no small part to Chris Pine’s performance, and so the audience is much more sympathetic towards him and willing to ignore his flaws.

One of Asha’s problems as a character is that she doesn’t really contribute much to the story. By contrast, Magnifico’s downfall is brought about entirely as a result of his own actions. Magnifico is in fact not a good leader, because he gives in to paranoia and temptation, acts in a very unprofessional manner, and escalates the conflict to an absurd degree.

Please note, Asha does not get upset that Magnifico refuses to grant her grandfather’s wish, nor does she ever demand that Magnifico needs to grant every wish. She gets upset that he insinuates that her grandfather might have dangerous intentions, and because he does not have a convincing reason why he doesn’t return wishes that he won’t grant. Rather than calmly explaining his reasoning to her, Magnifico rudely dismisses Asha and then blows up at her.

If Magnifico were a good leader, he would have explained to each person WHY he won’t grant their wish, and given them advice on alternatives. As it stands, he knows full well that everyone expects their wish to be granted. It’s why they even came to Rosas in the first place, it is the literal reason he even built his kingdom. He clearly makes a big spectacle out of the wish granting ceremonies, which every citizen visibly goes wild for. He never elaborates to anyone his specific standards for the wishes he chooses to grant, other than a broad statement of "for the good of the kingdom". In his regard, Magnifico reminds me of bureaucratic systems that never provide every option or solution upfront, with their logic being "you didn't ask".

Not to mention, he literally tells Asha, "People think wishes are just ideas. But no, no, they are a part of your heart. The very best part." He knows, for a fact, how important wishes are to everyone. But the movie's awful writing makes him think the best solution to dealing with wishes that MIGHT have dangerous consequences, is to just hoard them. All that returning the ungranted wishes will accomplish is returning the memory of what the wish even is, that's literally it, and the people will be no better off than they were before they gave Magnifico their wish.

I dunno about you guys, but whenever I watched stories that preached “be careful what you wish for”, my takeaway was never “your desires could be dangerous and you should never pursue them for fear of disaster”, I always thought the stories were telling us, “beware of anything that promises instant gratification, because it’s usually too good to be true, and will cost you more than you will gain”. While the things you want in life may have disastrous consequences, you won’t really know until you try to pursue them through your own honest efforts, and not through “magical” shortcuts. That’s how we learn and grow, through trial and error. 

As it currently stands from my point of view, when people say "Magnifico has every right to keep ungranted wishes" it looks like they're unintentionally saying, “The Disney Corporation has every right to keep your work and ideas, because you willingly and legally handed them over. Tough luck if you regret the deal you were given. No takesies backsies!”

While I have found no evidence to confirm that the filmmakers intended for Magnifico to be a criticism of Corporate Disney, considering the inclusion of the animation sweatshop scene in Pixar's Inside Out 2, I think the probability is likely. (Not to mention, when Asha shows Magnifico her little flipbook animation, he dismissively remarks “Do we consider that a talent?”)

Please note, everyone is free to rewrite and reinterpret Magnifico however they want. He's just a fictional character after all, and fan content is supposed to be for fun. I just think it's funny how defensive people get over him a he appears in the final movie. They say he deserved better, and I agree, but we have very different ideas of what "better" means. In fact, I think every character in Wish deserved better, because again, they were all victims of bad writing. My problem isn't that they took a good man and made him arbitrarily "evil", it's that they didn't make him evil enough from the very beginning. Remember those deleted scenes featuring a villainous Magnifico with better writing, along with an evil Amaya that he can play off of? I'm fairly certain that everyone unanimously agreed these deleted scenes were much better than the final movie, and yet some still insist that Magnifico should have been a hero all along. I dunno, it's a funny dichotomy. 

EDIT: A few days after posting I came across this video essay supporting the interpretation of Magnifico as a critique of Corporate Disney and I loved it. Please go watch it!

[geminicafe]

if your first reaction to someone sharing an opinion about sunrise on the reaping that differs from the majority is “oh you’re falling for propaganda!! you’re just as bad as a the captiol!! you just don’t understand it at all!!” maybe you should take a closer look at what propaganda is.

[brenatto-apothecary]

I am a very vocal hater of the whole "the game is just for the cast you can't criticize it ever!!" mentality, to the extent that even when it's in response to a take I think is awful, it will always bother me more than the original take. After some reflection, I've broken it down to five key reasons why it upsets me so much.

1) The obvious one is that the idea that the show is only being made for the cast is false. If they didn't intend to make a piece of entertainment, they wouldn't have posted it online. A lot of creative works are made with the creators enjoyment as the highest priority. That does not mean that's all it was made for.

2) The way these posts commonly focus on how the cast isn't obligated to do what other people want is a fundamental misunderstanding of what criticism is and why we make it. I assure you the vast majority of people do not think their complaints should be met with the cast personally kneeling before them.

3) It implies that something being made with love automatically makes disliking any element of it wrong. Which is a belief that is impossible to hold without becoming a hypocrite. There is no way in hell you have never disliked a piece that the creator(s) had fun making. I'm writing this post for my personal enjoyment. Have fun with that paradox.

4) There's this weird belief that all complaints are about specific desires that weren't met. There are actually a whole lot of posts about whether the story succeeded in doing what it intended to do, but I guess I can't expect people to read things.

5) This is my big one. Art deserves to be criticized. It's one of if not the most important way of interacting with a work. I don't believe saying actual play is uniquely exempt from critique is respectful of the medium. You are treating it as though it shouldn't be engaged with in the way we engage with all other art and is, therefore, lesser.

[fiona-fififi]

Okay. I'm about to say something that's probably going to get me run out of the fandom, but.

I don't actually think Tommy leaving their date early had anything to do with him not wanting to pressure Buck (regardless of what he claimed later). Instead, I think it had everything to do with Tommy being annoyed and no longer into it that evening, and I think that is both okay AND significantly more interesting than taking him at his word later and framing it as some selfless act by a sanitized elder gay shepherd just trying to do right by Buck.

[lavellaned]

Actually I think one of the reasons why this game is so awful to get through is how it treats abuse, abusers, and abuse victims.

Under cut due to length of rambling:

First of all, Morrigan. Abused as a child by her mother, Flemeth aka Mythal, learned about the world and how to interact with it in a skewed way. Was treated in a way that no child should be by anyone let alone their parent.

Fast forward to Inquisition, particularly a worldstate in which Kieran is alive. The scene in the fade where Morrigan confronts Flemythal is one of the most important and special scenes in all of dragon age to me.

Growing up through abuse as a child you never think "I don't deserve this", you mainly think things like "Why is this happening to me?" and "Bad things happen to me." You know that these things are bad and make you feel bad, but when your baseline for how you should experience the world is abusive, you don't have the point of reference to think otherwise. And then you grow up. You look back on the abuse through the eyes of the child who experienced it but also through the detached, adult view that you currently have and have to reconcile the two. It's not easier nor pleasant. Getting to the age your abuser was/getting into the position of power your abuser had over you is difficult. Being at that stage and picturing yourself doing what was done to you to someone else is fucking sickening, and then you start to realize "I wasn't the problem, it WASN'T my fault, YOU are the one that's fucked up." But a lot of people can't and therefore the cycle of abuse continues.

But Morrigan does. She straight up tells her abuser "I will not be the mother you were to me." To have a character who survived childhood abuse be able to reach a point in their life where they can take back their personhood from their abuser is pretty damn important, actually. To this day I get weepy just thinking about it.

And then fucking veilguard happened.

Not only does it not matter if Kieran is alive or if Morrigan drank from the well (something that would BIND HER SPIRIT TO HER ABUSER), but Morrigan straight up let Mythal hitch a ride in her. The very thing that Morrigan tried to prevent ever since the first goddamn game? And we're all just supposed to accept and be ok with this?

The only way I can see this not being a complete character assassination of Morrigan is if Mythal just straight up possessed her unwillingly/killed her. Have Mythal use Morrigan as a information receptacle for new players, but also use old players' already-implemented relationship with her as a way to manipulate them. Either way, shit sucks.

Then there's the Crows. You know, the guild who takes children from brothels, orphanages, the streets and puts them through Hunger Games levels of training in which they either die or survive to become a slave assassin for the rest of their life. Not in veilguard. We're all just one big happy family. We rule Antiva, yippee!

Finally, there's Solas. One could argue his entire existence is the product of abuse, and everything that has happened in Thedas is because of it. I think framing his regrets as physical manifestations that want to kill him is a really interesting narrative choice. Unlocking the regret murals was one of the very few parts of this game that invoked a strong emotional response from me, not just because I'm an unapologetic Solas Enjoyer but because the implications are heartbreaking.

And then the game has you sit through the most fucking unbearable CBT group therapy session to talk about them with some of the most annoying damn people in Thedas who treat the literal apocalyptic levels of abuse Solas went through for millennia as something like a joke? And we the player are not given the option to challenge this? This game makes the point to force the player to agree with the flippant attitudes brought up from this.

Then brings up the final scene with Solas. Do I think the meeting with Mythal and Solas was handled well? Yes and no, but that's for another time. Solas is so far in the trenches of the trauma of abuse that he will not stop until his abuser pretty much tells him "I'm done abusing you." I think this was good and bad, again another time.

The way Solas interacts with his abuser is the direct flipside of how Morrigan does. You see more than one way someone can heal/not heal from it.

Morrigan, someone with arguable little power in the world, stands up against her abuser unflinchingly.

Solas, described through history as a GOD, someone with unfathomable amounts of knowledge and power, cowers and offers his abuser a literal weapon to kill him with, unprompted.

If this was a good game, it would be about regret but also about survivor's guilt, something that those who survived abuse have to deal with for the rest of their lives. But it's not, because it's a a bad game.

[tackykachowch]

Idk if I'm gonna get jumped for this but....Iiii don't know if it's really appropriate to call Vander Jinx's dad. He definitely was her guardian, with huge uncle energy for sure, but dad? Like, dad is something really personal and requires a high level of closeness, and they didn't seem to share that bond. Out of all the kids Powder seemed to be the most removed from him and share very little traits/interests with him, and after growing up we don't see Jinx care about him at all. So, idk, to call him her dad seems more like a fanservice to me rather than what can be confirmed by the show.

He's defo her dad in the au, tho, because there he would spend a lot more time with her and because of Vi's death pay more attention to her, therefore tightening their bond.

UPD: I mean, Vander isn't even a part of her hallucinations. Now, you could argue that it's too traumatic for her even to remember him as is seen in season 1 ep9, but I think it's the opposite, actually. Knowing Silco he probably yapped about Vander all the time (and he literally does this in ep5), so Jinx definitely remembers him and thinks of him to some extent. But why then his hallucination appeared only once? Well, I think it only happened because Jinx was under extreme pressure already, plus she recently had a shimmer operation, which could've worsened her mental state, hence Vander appearing as a hallucination. Again, this is just how I see it, I may be wrong, but I do think this view of their relationship is rational enough.

[doverstar]

did you see that skippable intro disney crafted to be played every time you try to start moana 2 on disney+? it comes on every time. go restart the movie. it's there. they had josh gad with his olaf voice talking about past disney movies - some of them made almost thirty years ago - and they threw in that one popular song from the new mufasa film as "best of all" at the end. and the gall. the unmitigated impudence. of the tagline 'the greatest stories live here'. of saying "aren't we lucky". this is not an ad. do you understand? it is playing on a streaming service you are already paying to use. this is disney parading the corpses of good stories, the likes of which they no longer make, in front of you before you watch this new bad movie. it is so intentional. do you know that the majority of the people who worked on toy story, zootopia, and lilo and stitch no longer work for disney? they are literally saying to you "hey don't forget, we're disney! remember disney? we're so good at this! remember that while you're watching this, our latest soulless sequel". did you see it. did you, like me, immediately turn off the movie and set fire to your television

[sexybread-png]

its weird as hell to barely draw black women and when you do you make them more masculine each time……….. on BHM

do better

hello anon! i hear your complaints and i would like to discuss, if ur amenable, as i can only really listen if i can understand

firstly, to address my lack of drawings of black women, i will not argue. its true i could stand to draw more black women. most art i make is fanart and most media i get interested in lacks black women to make fanart of. therein lies my issue. ill be sure to expand my taste in tv shows and look for medias that include more black women and poc in general. /srs

now, on the issue of drawing them more masculine, i will need you to elaborate. is it the pants? the muscles? is it the hairiness on my most recent post?

assuming its the latter, i will have to disagree. insinuating hair on a woman's body is more masculine than none is in of itself a statement that reeks of misogyny, racism and transphobia.

women have body hair. some women have a LOT of body hair. it does not make them any less feminine/any less of a woman.

heres an article on the history of shaving, and a reddit post of a woman's relationship with her body hair.

id like to highlight this part of the article:

now, ill admit these are not from the point of view of a black woman so i'd be interested to hear that perspective. however, i've received many comments that were happy about the representation of hairy women in my art and i will always take into consideration the way my art makes people feel. this art has made ppl feel seen.

you'll notice, ive also drawn galinda with a happy trail. i just like drawing hairy women.

on another note, here are some drawings ive made of black women:

could you point to me what makes them more masculine ?

or was it the fact that i drew elphaba with a bush

[1800naveen]

Unpopular opinion

Tamlin is morally grey, not Rhysand. Hell, he's the definition of morally grey in the Acotar universe.

He's good at heart but at times, he executed them poorly.

He truly cares for his court and lets in refugees or anyone who needs a place that they can call home. He will protect the people he loves, even if it means sacrificing his life. He's actually making a difference.

Tamlin may love someone but no one is enough to push him away from the path of fighting against tyranny (that's iconic as hell like yes. If I had two choices: my lover or fight against tyranny, I'm fighting every time. Tyrants will make sure that almost everyone suffers and I'm not down with that. No offense but get the hell out of my way, I got tyrants to kill).

His moral compass is like a diamond and it's unbreakable.

But one of the few actions where he did wrong is held over his head unlike Rhysand who has done numerous amounts of bad stuff but most people don't get mad at him for it.

"It's because he's morally grey!" Nah, he's just a bad guy and that's completely fine, I like a good villain. But sjm keeps defending him and his actions which is just annoying.

IF TAMLIN WASN'T BLONDE, PEOPLE WOULD LIKE HIM MORE. THEY CAN'T HANDLE A BLONDE MAN WHO SERVES JUST AS MUCH OR MORE THAN THEIR DARK HAIRED RIVAL😔

On another note, what's up with the Tamlin would sacrifice you to save the world but Rhysand would sacrifice the world to save you?? Girl, I don't ever want a man to do that just for me, nobody is going to have a place to live anymore. What's more important, a singular person's life or the lives of millions? Fuck the villains, heroes on top.

(also he reminds me of a golden tiger, I can't hate him when he looks like this to me)

(I love this animal so much, I would adopt one if I could. You can't tell me that this is not Tamlin.)

[fuji09]

We need to bring kindness back to fandom.

We need to stop judging people based on who they ship or who they stan.

We need to stop treating others like they're stupid and exasperating for bringing up "old news" when they are new to the fandom and for them it's all new.

We need to go back to ship and let ship. It never should have come to proship and anti. People didn't used to harass and judge others for who they shipped.

We need to go back to quietly filtering the tags we don't want to see, not scroll through the content we hate and then attack people who love that content.

We need to stop accusing people of being a pedophile because of who they ship. The only thing tha makes you a pedo, is being an adult who is attracted to prepubescent children. Adults attracted to teenagers (post pubescent) are hebephiles. Stop calling hebephilia, pedophilia. It does more harm than good and waters down the severity of the words.

We need to stop being ageist. The amount of ageism in fandom now is disgraceful. Teens and young adults constantly judging older adults and trying to push them out of fandom is so wrong. Who do you think gives y'all the most content? Adults. Stop acting like 30 years old is ancient. One day you'll be 30, it's not that old, seriously.

We need to stop acting like minors and adults can't be friends because "they have nothing in common and it's creepy." Their shared interest is fandom! Fandom elders used to be treated as the coolest people in the fandom, and now they are treated like they are intruding on the spaces they made.

We need to stop with minors openly engaging with NSFW content. Stop following people who have "no minors" on their page. Stop openly engaging with adult content because you may not get in trouble, but the adult could.

We need to stop ignoring fandom etiquette. It's there for a reason. Going into tags of what you hate isn't healthy for you and it's annoying to the people who like those tags. Making a post about hating a certain ship? Don't tag that ship, use "anti [insert ship name here]".

We need to stop demonizing DDDNE (dead dove do not eat). Whether it's there to warn about triggering content or there to emphasize that you're getting exactly what was said you'll get, it's there to not only protect the author, but the reader as well.

We need to stop accusing people of things they are clearly not. Accusations of racism, especially towards poc, is not only hurtful, but it's constantly used for when someone doesn't like a character that is a poc because other reasons to not like a character is just apparently not thought of anymore.

We need to stop judging other people's headcanons. Headcanons are there for us to enjoy.

We need to stop insulting each other and each other's art and writing in fandom. Don't like don't read. Move along and check out something you do like.

We need to stop with making everything about a ship or character you hate and spreading said hate throughout the fandom. It really isn't cool to have pages dedicated to hating characters and ships. It's not edgy, it's sad.

We need to stop trying to control how people perceived what they read and watch. We are all different, we all won't see things exactly the same due to our life experiences and how our minds work.

Fandom is supposed to be an escape from the world, to have fun, and to meet others who are interested in the same things.

All this hate and discourse makes everything unpleasant. End the cycle that started less than a decade ago. Fandom can go back to being just being fun and not a morality contest.

[soath]

The thing about Bells Hells is that asking their opinion on anything is like setting up a political survey at a rave under a bridge or in some sort of especially niche genre specific goth club or backstage at an off-off Broadway conceptual show; you’re going to get really interesting answers! They are not going to be representative of the general population in the slightest. There is a faction of people who think we need to solve this by introducing one Designated Average Relationship With The Universe Dave to the polling sample, ruining their beautiful natural diversity of guys-who-could-be-in-the-musical-RENT. To which the wise man says: “Never!” This is the little freaks with half baked philosophies and unresolved personal issues party. More pressingly, it has been noted that Bells Hells doesn’t seem to realize that their relationship with power writ large is bafflingly different from the average Exandrian. This is an problem, but it’s one that could be in-character, one more extension of an admirable commitment to trauma-informed alarming theological opinions.

[curapicas]

Lots to say about Vex's attachment issues. So instead I'll point out: THAT is indeed the face of a man who just found out the guardian angel that took a bullet for him won't put a ring on it

[eightsixtiism]

"i used to be a lando fan but-" ohh myyy gooood just say you're a coward and you succumbed to peer pressure

[lostyesterday]

As a visually disabled person myself, one thing I wish TNG had done with Geordi is show his disability actually affecting how he functions in his daily life. For example, I can’t remember a single time in TNG where Geordi is shown as needing accommodations in his work environment. You might say that’s because his visor means that he can basically “see” normally and so he wouldn’t need accommodations, but I find this explanation frustrating.

For one thing, real life visually disabled people absolutely require accommodations to do most jobs, so if Geordi’s meant to be any kind of accurate reflection of the experiences of blind people, he should require some accommodations. For me at least, it isn’t some kind of wish fulfillment fantasy to see a visually disabled character who can do anything a sighted person can with no accommodations whatsoever. Instead, it feels like a denial of everything that being disabled has meant to me over my life. Disabled people are disabled. We have more difficulty doing certain tasks than an able-bodied person would – that’s what makes us disabled. We require changes to our environment in order to function well.

Also, literally just based on the in-universe information given about Geordi’s visor, it doesn’t make any sense to me that he wouldn’t require accommodations. Geordi’s visor is not really described as simulating vision, it is described as providing completely different sensory information about the physical properties of the world around him. I like to imagine the visor’s input as a kind of enhanced spatial awareness with a precise knowledge of where certain objects are, what their shape is, and what they’re made of. As TNG mentions several times, Geordi’s visor provides much more information than human eyes do, but, importantly, in the few episodes where the details of how Geordi’s visor works are discussed at all, it’s never described as providing purely visual information such as the color or reflectiveness of an object. I think that if Geordi faces a mirror, his visor will tell him there’s a piece of glass in front of him and he’ll know about how large it is and what material it’s made of, but he won’t be able to see his reflection in it, because the visor doesn’t provide that kind of visual information. This distinction is important to me, because it means that Geordi is still functionally blind with the visor, and it should mean that he interacts with the world differently from a sighted person.

For example, I would have loved if Geordi had been shown to be unable to recognize particular people until they spoke. All his visor tells him is that there’s a person in front of him and about what size and shape they are, but this isn’t generally enough information to determine a person’s identity. He canonically perceives Data as looking very different from an organic person which makes sense because Data is made of fully different material. And maybe Geordi can generally tell different species apart based on different body temperatures or something like that. But I really wish that Geordi had been shown at least a few times to need the sound of a person’s voice or some other cue to tell him who they were.

I also think it doesn’t make sense that Geordi can apparently read text on computer screens. How can he read if the visor doesn’t really provide visual information? A computer screen should just register as a flat piece of material. Geordi should have required some kind of accommodation to be able to use the computer screens. For example, maybe Geordi could use the computer entirely through voice commands, something that obviously already exists in the star trek world. Or he could use some kind of tactile display. The Voyager episode The Year of Hell shows that computer terminals on starships are able to utilize a tactile display that I’m guessing is somewhat similar to braille. I loved this mention in Voyager of tactile displays, because it indicates that Starfleet ships are probably automatically equipped with such accessibility devices. Geordi needing an accommodation as small as this would have gone really far in terms of making him feel like a genuine representation of a disabled character, at least to me.