#also to a certain toxic fan I used to know who said that this poster is ugly

[yyoon5]

another beloved member of my pride and my joys. 🖤🩶🤍

Also I ran into them three times and we got introduced and everything. And Hinako recognized me when I came to the fan merch lottery later on. 🥹

[manogirl]

From the reddit files:

Context: Someone said how much they loved Between Us, and that they hoped Boun was gay. Commenters immediately got upset because PRIVACY.

My comments:

I don't disagree that there are fans who get out of hand and are toxic.

But I think we're skirting a real line of homophobia and heteronormativity here, in that we're coming perilously close to "privacy = assume actors are straight until they tell ME they're not." That's no better than assuming queerness, as I'm sure you can see. In fact, it upholds a power structure that continues to make it hard for actors to come out on their own terms.

Further, it increasingly bothers me when straight folks do it, because I feel that they're doing the same thing you're saying the other side is doing; perhaps some straight women are invested in actors being straight because it fulfills a fantasy of theirs. Surely you can see that there's a problem when straight people shout down queer people and tell them to keep their feelings to themselves.

I'm not saying I want actors to be outed, or to come out if it's not what they want. But I am saying that putting the kibosh on any talk about sexuality by yelling "It's PRIVATE" is playing straight (ha!) into the hands of heteronormative and patriarchal culture.

(Also FWIW, though this does not apply to me as a queer lady, I sympathize with folks who want to see queer men repping queer men on screen. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting someone who is like you to be on screen playing someone who is like you. It's why fat folks like me want to see actual fat folks on screen, not skinny people in fat suits. There's a real power to marginalized folks claiming space on screen.)

****

Second response to someone, who said I had a problem because I assumed that they thought privacy = straight and it doesn't, okay?!?!?! after the jump.

I'm not assuming anything about you. I never ONCE mentioned that you think those things, I only said that there's a danger in going too far. I don't even know you, and I don't see your name above in this thread. I never said the poster above was doing this; if you're reading it that way, uh, maybe examine why that is.

I will say that I don't come to this idea (privacy = straight) lightly, and I know I'm not the only person who has started to see this pattern, because fandom twitter is talking about it right now.

You throw around a couple phrases: "police a series of ideas" "values based assumption" that are just...nonsense. Sorry. They don't MEAN anything.

I'm interested in a nuanced discussion of how certain things that fandom (as a whole, NOT YOU INDIVIDUALLY) coalesce around can be harmful and/or uphold heteronormative/patriarchal ideas.

I specifically never said that I know what sexuality people are, and I never said that I need to know. I did say that I'm against actors being outed, and that I'm against actors coming out if they don't want to be out. I never said I want to speculate on which actors are gay and which aren't. I never said that private and personal lives of actors "enter my head". I simply said that there is a conversation to be had about sexuality and queerness in the BL industry, and that some fans shutting it down because "PRIVACYYYYY" is upholding heteronormative and patriarchal norms, and you haven't said anything that convinces me otherwise.

tl;dr: This isn't about YOU individually, or the individual posters above. It's about fandom as a whole, and about how fandom understands queerness amongst the people who work in the industry. Any time that discussion starts to happen, it gets shouted down amidst a cacophony of comments about privacy.

[analysis-by-a-muffin]

RGG: Majima and Toxic Masculinity

It's really not like the writers themselves try desperately hard to force the audience to see Majima Goro as a totally heterosexual and completely straight acting man. However, some circles of the audience haven't gotten the memo and will harshly defend the honor of a man who's not real. As much as I've easily come across those that are accepting and fans that are queer themselves, I've also crossed paths with loud bi/homophobes who try to attack or pester those that don't see him the same way they do. In truth, I've never seen such a large concentration of people who are starkly against the notion that a fictional character could be bisexual or gay. (With a concerning amount of people who seem to outright refuse to believe bisexuality is even a viable orientation. He must be one or the other). And as I stated at the beginning, the writers aren't giving him a new girl every game. He's had less romantic interests of the opposite sex than Kiryu- a very un-horny man who's had at least four(or five) if you want to include his place in spinoff games Kenzan and Ishin.

It's nothing new to any fandom (and it's nothing new for me to bring it up), but it can still be upsetting and frustrating to watch bigoted people parade around a specific character in a series you enjoy. All while claiming they know them better than anyone else. I go through this with Sora from Kingdom Hearts who's another character that isn't exactly the poster child for traditional masculinity, and other characters of that specific variety.

Majima has only had two female love interests across the series so far, and we only see him interact with one of them while we're left up to the word of other characters outside his POV for the second interest. While he clearly cared a lot for Makoto, the Majima Saga of Kiwami 2 reveals she's started a family and will soon be living in another country. She's got her own life; a much better and happier one. Yet, she's still used by some as a prop for the sake of Majima being viewed as hetero, and some still want him to be hung up on a woman he loved over two decades ago. I can't deny that it starts to feel desperate and creepy. Him meeting her again just gave him a chance to see how well she's doing for herself and move on from that. I also can't deny it's frustrating to watch people treat Makoto in a way that completely denies her her own character in order to do what they think will make Majima happy.

As depicted by Goromi, and his pink dump trucks that debuted in Y3, Majima must be a fan of the flashiest shades of pink. Having a drag persona alone is something I think would turn certain fans away from him. It does to some small degree. Spinoffs like Dead Souls feature Majima being even more openly queer or disinterested in women than he is for the most part in the main games. While not canon, he's still depicted as being really into Daigo crossdressing and asking him if he's "ever thought of switchin sides." He gets genuinely disgruntled over not being able to kiss him, too. In Kenzan, he doesn't gain any feelings toward a woman he's lived with for a while, choosing to instead view her as a sister. (His treatment of the cabaret girls in 0 is similar. No attraction, just slightly younger women he views as if they're his daughters). Kiryu is the one who ends up with her for a year. This isn't even scratching the surface of multiple actions from Majima and things he's said during the main games. Viewing Majima as queer is nothing invalid, but at the same time, no one should be treated as if they have to pull out a novel to defend themselves from attackers.

The homophobia rears its ugly head in a format that I haven't seen jumped on a lot for other characters. "Majima isn't gay or bi. He's just crazy." It's the most absurd thing I've seen someone say on this topic to be honest about it. Shrugging away the perception of him not being straight by claiming any non-heteronormative behavior is the product of him just being a zany guy who seeks to strike fear and intimidate other men? Is he only stable minded when it involves women? That's sadly not all this mindset involves. There tends to be a push from those who aren't comfortable with their own orientations to not apply labels to characters. Claiming that queer people attaching queer labels to characters is wrong, but it's totally okay to call these same characters straight is hypocritical. Heterosexuality is also a label. Ironically, those with their own discomforts tend to praise and refer to Majima as a man who's just really comfortable with himself. Nothing more, nothing less.

All in all, people should be allowed to see this fictional character how they want. I have my grievances and disagreements with some fans, but the important thing is that I never go out of my way to start fights. Or start a random argument as if someone was waiting with baited breath to know my unasked for opinion.

[ghcstvalleychief]

I will say with the whole BOC thing…there still wasn’t any excuse for them to not drop MA (KP) content. Tweets. Posters. That type of thing. They still should have been doing their part @ BOC. [I don’t know how busy they were with filming so I don’t know about the MA reacting to KP aspect but for some of everything else..truly don’t think there was an excuse.] (Not that you said otherwise or anything. I do not trust BOC either tbh. I only mean..I am afraid some people are going to be like…”ha! why were you all complaining?”And it’s like…while MA were busy, there is still some weirdness with BOC. They are not off the hook. Going forward…definitely watching with caution. I do wish they would handle the author situation and the B situation truly.

A star has to dim their lights for others? Instead of just keep pushing the others and hope it works while letting mileapo do their thing. Like what bs is this?! There's no way you expect 16 men to raise up together. You can't tell me its equality if mileapo are the sacrificial lamb. They have a polished performance yet they have to take the back seat?? I know mileapo have more talents to show yet they give it up for naked men dancing. The equality is a shame if its put above talent and quality.

I don't like that boc is pushing the kpop system on actors. I mean the toxic system of gatekeeping mileapo to push others. They are the brand but others gain more than them. Also the family agenda vs. business. Be friends thats great but don't mix it with business it doesn't end well. The way apo talks its like he settling for less out of kindness than desire. Its like their using mileapo kindness to make them back down. Why do they have to sacrifice? If you want equal opportunities for everyone

I feel like all of these asks can be grouped together, so that's what I did. Discretion is advised, because I am rather mean in this post. If you're a fan of certain actors, don't read this. It's not pretty and I'm not nice about it.

The anon option is still open; however if someone feels the need to clap back in my inbox, the anon option will go off. I will expect you to say what you need to say without hiding behind the anonymous feature and I doubt anyone wants that. So, be respectful in any rebuttals and this won't turn into something else, okay? Okay.

*cracks knuckles*

We've been assuming and thinking that the reason MileApo weren't getting the credit and attention they deserve from BOC for months. We've all suspected that something was amiss in the way the social media attention and content was handled by BOC, and now we know that we're right. Allegedly, Pond asked Mile and Apo to stand back so their co-workers/colleagues could get some shine. They were allegedly asked to allow their own shine to dim to allow other coworkers who weren't getting as much shine (at least according to the company) to get a tiny bit of that shine. Now, MA stans had been seeing this strangeness for months. We were all told that there's an explanation for this. There's a reason for that. They're busy so BOC isn't lying. Bullshit! All of that was bullshit and we were right about every single thing. This has nothing to do with any KP vs. VP shit either. This is deeper than that.

At the end of the day, you don't get participation trophies in real life. If you're participating in a race and other people beat you, you simply lost. You don't get an award for simply participating. No, you get an award for winning so what's this bullshit about everyone getting a piece of the pie when they haven't put in nearly as much work as others? Why should someone who's been putting their blood, sweat, and tears into something day in and day out have to share in their accolades with someone who's barely had to do an ounce of that? I'm not dragging Mile and Apo for agreeing to go along with that shit because that's just who they are as people. Except people will always take advantage of your kindness until you're all used up and they can't get anything else out of you. Always remember that. However, Mile and Apo are the exception and not the rule.

Most people would not do what Mile and Apo did. Hell, in the Western industry, that would have NEVER been a thing to begin with. No other show, company, or network has ever asked their lead actors/talent to fall back in an effort to allow their less hyped coworkers to get a bit of that shine. That would NEVER happen in Hollywood. I'm not saying that to brag on American/Western media, but that would have never happened in the States. That talent would call the bluff of the company that tried that shit and the company would stand down, because the company is nothing without the talent and they know that. The project/company is nothing without their biggest talent. If the other talent isn't getting as much attention, hype, and accolades as they would hope, then tough titties. That's just the luck of the draw and that's the way the world works. It's not like the people they're pushing deserves all of this effort anyway. Build can't act for shit and needs extensive training classes. Not to mention all of the racist, homophobic, and misogynistic bullshit he believes in that should have gotten his non-talented ass fired ages ago.

This just goes to show that I was right about another thing too - the so-called 'popularity' of certain actors isn't nearly on the level of what some fans think. If these actors were already so popular and even exceeded MA's popularity, this whole thing wouldn't need to happen. If the company felt like these particular actors weren't getting what they felt they should be getting in terms of attention and accolades, then that means these actors weren't getting enough to begin with. But again, this is all alleged. I knew BOC couldn't be trusted. On top of all of this shit, they have yet to release an official statement denouncing their involvement and affiliation with Daemi nor have they mentioned all of the harassment and inappropriate BTS behavior taken place either.

Fuck BOC. Fuck Pond. Fuck Daemi. Fuck Build.

[redrascal1]

And ...the JCF Kylo haters are at it again.

Rey was just a marketing gimmick. First female protagonist was always second fiddle to Kylo, the one audiences would find most relatable. I'm pretty sure they wanted her to be a Solo, and wanted that revealed in EP 9. And if we really think about why Rey has no real character, or why it appears they never really created one for her, it's because they felt they didn't need one, because she was a Solo. It's baked in. Just reveal the last name, and everything make sense. No homework necessary. Right? But they sided with the Reylo fans, and then changed things up so she wasn't related. (Maybe JJ was also pissed that half the audience figured it out before EP 7 even came out) And in that, they completely ruined the mystery box reveal, and whatever characterization she had because of her surname, or whatever narrative link she had with the Skywalkers-Solos. Amazing. They tossed their first female Jedi protagonist under the bus, to appease Reylo fans. Just like the story does. Because at its core, Reylo isn't about Rey AND Kylo. It's all about Kylo first, and Rey second.

How in the name of sanity has this poster come up with this one?

First of all...remember post TFA how many involved with the film repeatedly insisted Rey was NOT a Skywalker? I’m pretty certain they had no intention of making her Han’s long lost daughter. For a start...he was too old to be Rey’s father, as was Q’ira. They laughed when we suggested that maybe Jyn was her mother. And remember also, Abrams stating very firmly that Rey’s parents ‘were not in episode VII.’

Secondly ....please tell me just how they ‘pleased reylos?’ With the kiss? Nope. Most of us hated it.

 I refuse to believe that they ignored the chemistry between Rey and Kylo. And that those of us who did see it, were mistaken. Rian saw it. Critics loved it. The only people who flatly refuse to see it are the ‘Kylo is an abuser’ haters, and the Finn/Rey shippers.

Daisy Ridley herself shot down Finn/Rey before TLJ, saying they were ‘just friends’. They didn’t sacrifice Finn/Rey on the altar of reylo, because Finn/Rey was never meant to be..notice Rey’s words to Finn before leaving for Acht To: ‘we’ll meet again...my friend.’

Rey had every bit as much of a presence in the ST as Kylo...and in TROS, she completely eclipsed him. She had far more screen time. She ended up having all the glory at the end by killing Palpatine....something not even Yoda, Jedi master for 800 years could do alone. Rey did it by crossing two lightsabres.

Wow.

Do you know something, oh toxic Kylo hater? This was the SKYWALKER saga, not the Adventures of Rey, the Mighty Scavenger, saga. It should have been about Kylo first, and Rey second. But Abrams thrust his Mary Sue down our throats and up our noses in TROS because, as I said, he didn’t like the fact that Kylo Ren was more popular. That the supposed ‘villain’...stole the sequels. And this had nothing to do with reylos, and everything to do with the fact that Adam Driver acted everyone else off the screen (with the exception of Mark, in TLJ).

This sequel trilogy was supposed to be Rey’s shining glory - God knows why, as she was a Palpatine and it was the SKYWALKER saga. But Adam Driver’s tortured anti villain picked all three of the films up and ran off with them. Even when Abrams and Terrio did their very best to reduce his screen time, shove him out of the way to make way for Rey, and push the Trio at us for most of the film....guess what guys? It didn’t work.

And it never will. Rey was outshone by Kylo because not only was he a more interesting character, but good as Daisy was, Adam still out acted her. It’s why they had to bump up her role so much in TROS...Rey was supposed to be the ‘breakout’ star of the ST, but instead it turned out to be Kylo. And that had zero to do with the film makers ‘trying to push her aside’ because they did nothing of the sort - they pushed Kylo aside to make way for Rey. 

It’s entirely due to Adam. Full stop. Chew on those sour grapes, you morons.

[fasterthanmydemons]

{out of breath} I’m going to be honest, most of my night was eaten up by a problem with the websites I use for my classes, so my students couldn’t do their assignments and all hell broke loose. So I just don’t think I’m going to be on tonight, because... also... below the cut because I don’t want to contribute to the dumpster fire that my dash is tonight...

...I get on here super late, to write and wind down, and my dash is just... full... of so much hate for someone I’m a big fan of, and the posters of said hate do have a point, and it makes me feel like a bad person for being a fan of this particular person, and I just don't want to be here right now. It just killed whatever desire I had to write because now I feel like I’m a bad person and am doing something wrong by using this FC. I try to just be positive and stay out of the argument entirely, but when every other post on my dash is hate and cursing and vitriol and name-calling for this person, it just gets to me. Maybe I am wrong for using this FC. I honestly don’t know. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like a terrible person, and it makes me just not want to rp these characters anymore, quite honestly.

I’m sorry for the negativity, I’m just having a mood drop apparently. I will try to be back on tomorrow, but right now I just need to distance myself from the negativity for a bit and maybe think about making some changes. I really don’t want to, since it would involve deleting one blog and altering a couple others a great deal, but having to dance around blogs that are just so hateful that then interact with mine (in a peaceful and friendly manner, nobody’s been nasty to me personally, this is not a callout post at all)... it just makes me feel like I’m walking on eggshells. I have a list right now of urls I can’t mention certain things to, or who haven’t seen certain things, or who will not tolerate certain names, faces, etc., because of this one FC, and it’s just getting exhausting and upsetting. It confuses me as to why these blogs interact with me at all, and it makes me wonder if they just... haven’t noticed yet? That I use that FC? It makes me scared for the moment when they find out, like am I gonna get chewed out and labeled nasty things for it? The stress is real.

At the same time, like I said, they do have a significant point, so I don’t want to start blocking or saying that I don’t want to interact because of this issue, because then I look like I support certain terrible ideology when I definitely don’t. It’s causing me so much stress to the point of me just not wanting to be here. It’s not that I don’t care... I do... but it’s just that I come here to write and have fun, not to discuss politics and the very horrible real world. If I want that, I’ll sit down and watch the news, which I already do.

I thought the best thing to do was be honest and let everyone know where I’m at. I just need to take some time to think about what I want to do and what’s best for my own personal mental headspace right now. Being a fan of someone isn’t worth making Tumblr a toxic place for myself. Even if they’re representing characters I love to write and stopping that would make me sad, it’s starting to become not worth it to me when I am made to feel like an inherently bad person for using a particular FC.

I’m sorry... and I hope to be on tomorrow, but right now my muse is zero, and I don’t see myself coming out of this funk tonight. I love you all, and I hope you’re having a better night than I am. Thank you for listening. <3

[laufire]

Supernatural s1

my dash: decries Supernatural every five posts.

me: time to watch it seriously for the first time in my life.

-First thing first: it’s an amazingly well-crafted season of tv. I’m a character-focused watcher, not a plot-focused one; I never connected emotionally to the Winchesters (still haven’t and likely never will, as interesting I might find them as character constructs), so I feared I’d be bored and would want to skip scenes. Nuh huh. I was many things, but none of them were bored xDD. Each episode was a lesson in good pacing and the entire season another in proper build-up. There are one or two or a few dozen tv-writers I would like to show it to, ngl.

-Another thing it excelled at was in its portrayal in abusive family dynamics. The way Dean went mellow and so unlike himself when John gave an order (and what a SHOCK it is in the later episodes when he finally stands up to him!!). How Sam said HE would apologize to his father when they saw each other again, or how he made apologies for his father because “it could have been worse” (at least John didn’t beat them up, like it happened to that poor kid!). John showing Sam more “““respect””” (as far as he’s able at least) simply because Sam already proved he’s capable of leaving him; the way John controls the information he gives them and when and how and how much and how small they feel when they reunite with him. Dean knowing his father had been possessed by a demon because it wasn’t reprimanding him and belittling him. Dean’s psychic shapeshifter (?) expressing his resentment towards Sam for getting to escape. Dean’s quickness to resort to violence when Sam says something that makes him angry, or how he tries to severe ties between Sam and his college friends, or how he guilt trips him when Sam says he plans on returning to his studies, or how he minimizes Sam’s experiences with John or how Sam criticizes Dean’s compliance... (I don’t think Dean’s being consciously manipulative. I think it’s intuitive. Which is far, far scarier. He’s the Elena Gilbert of Supernatural and a walking red flag for controlling behavior). How it’s paired with ~honeymoon periods. The way they use the families around them to highlight their issues. It’s... chilling and terrifying and I can’t look away. I won’t get into the shit John pulls in 2x01 because that’s for the s2 POV, but oh my god I’m so happy he’s dead.

I wasn’t all that sure of how self-aware the creators were about this trend (especially because of how centralized and validated Dean’s POV is in his conflicts with Sam IMO. OTOH... characters like Dean and actors like Ackles are the type to take over a show by charisma alone tbf. The way he swoops in in the pilot and starts disrupting everything, including Sam’s relationship, reminding me of both Angel in BTVS and Chuck in Gossip Girl, Doylist-wise. This comparison is going to make sense to like three people I talk with regularly xDD). At least on early seasons, since certain spoilers about the later ones make me think it grew over time. I’m still unsure but I think they are a little self-aware because of this quote:

Eric Kripke said of Buffy: “I loved ‘Hush’ and ‘Once More, With Feeling,’ but overall, Buffy really taught me about effectively using metaphor in genre. For Buffy, it was ‘high school is hell (literally),’ and Joss Whedon did such a masterful job of grounding his horror and fantasy concepts in this notion, and ultimately telling allegories about high school, which turned what could’ve been B-Movie material into an all-time classic. I used that same philosophy on my run of Supernatural, with the mantra ‘family is hell (literally),’ and always grounded my horror episodes around the notion of families, to the show’s benefit. So thanks, Joss Whedon. I owe you a beer. (Credit: The WB)

everyone wants to be Buffy lol.

-My absolute favourite thing was how competent the Winchesters are (I’m even reluctantly including John here. That bastard). They’re sneaky with local authorities, crafty about fake IDs, credit scams, research abilities, DIY supernatural detectors xDD... I loved the lack of an audience proxy, the fact that the story throws you into the deep end with people that already know their shit. And that the other side is competent too, like when Meg & YED’s plan to trap John relied on the Winchester being competent; on Sam immediately going into the defensive because, what are the chances of finding that cute weird girl a second time, miles away?; on John suspecting it was a trap and only revealing himself after Meg appears to be dead... Another scene that I loved in that sense, from 2x01 (I watched until 2x03, I wanted to see Sterling K. Brown’s first appearance lol) was how upon discovering Reapers are shapeshifters, Dean immediately knew that cute ghost he’d befriended was the one after him. I get the feeling this aspect will get lost in future season and it’s a pity, tbh.

-Related to that, some of my favourite moments: Sam straight up bribing a guy to get into the morgue when Dean’s arguments are failing (with Dean’s money!); Dean’s plan of “well, if this guy is haunting the house and there’s no other way to kill him, we burn the house. No house no haunting”; Dean telling that kid to fake appendicitis to get his parents out of the house; John blessing the tank of water knowing he’s walking into a trap with demons... I dig this stuff.

-I get whiplash sometimes, with the show making a point of (very briefly) telling you racism, homophobia or pro-life attitudes are Bad(TM) and the brothers are Against them (the Racist Truck episode, the one where a woman used a Reaper to exchange “virtuous” lives for those of sinners...), when the rest of the show is err... what it is lol. Dean is toxic masculinity’s poster boy (I was so disgusted by how he acted with Jess omfg), in s2 we don’t get the monsters’ perspective on hunters until we’ve conveniently met our first black one (I love the episode AND the character but it’s fucking true)...

-I need to make a note of paying attention to the writers credits/Bts stuff because I find this show’s progression fascinating on a metatextual level. The only problem is that audience reaction seems to have played a big role (which is a problem on one or two different levels imo xD), and tracking that down is sliiiiightly more difficult lol. Oh well (I don’t even think I want to see too much of this fandom, even to satisfy my curiosity. Some of the glimpses I’ve caught of it are disturbing to the extreme).

-The detail about dead people’s blood being toxic to vampires is SO COOL OMG. I’m tempted to steal it xD

Some random stuff:

-The monsters of the week were some legit creepy stuff.

-I love that Meg has her own hellhounds. Is that still a thing when she returns?

-Dean: you and dad are reckless and I’m going to have to be the one that buries you. / Me, with the power of foresight: 👀

-Also Dean: sometimes it scares me how good I am at killing. / Me: it scares the shit out of me how good you are at killing, too, fam.

-I get the impression Sam loses his demonic-in-origin powers later on, right? What a waste, I love those.

-I’m pretty sure at one point it’s implied John used Dean to honeytrap monsters (when he sends him as a trap for the lady vampire that stole the Colt) and I really don’t know what to do with this information.

-Cassie was GORGEOUS and even make Dean likeable for me while they lasted xDD. But given this show’s track record I’m considering the lack of more appearances a blessing.

-So many guest stars. Everyone’s been on SPN. Especially if they were on the Buffyverse first (I totally get the impulse of casting Buffy actor after Buffy actor lmfao).

-Funny how Luther Hargreeves is exactly who a lot of fans think Dean was (Dean is far, far colder imo), and yet one is constantly called pathetic and evil and the other woobified. Very Funny Indeed *coughs* (funnier still that the character I often see Dean compared to is Wynonna Earp when the parallels are kids-pool deep at best and offensive at worst. Dean is not a Wynonna. Again, Dean is an Elena Gilbert xDD).

-The two paranormal investigators were dumb as rocks, but their motto was “What Would Buffy Do” so I like them (if they ever change that to What Would the Winchesters Do or something like that I’m going to be furious lmao).

-When I want to ~chill I dress about exactly like Dean (minus the flannel I’ve seen in later seasons, you can’t pay me to wear flannel). Like, I think I have a couple of shirts that look exactly like ones of his. I don’t know how I feel about this xDD

-IDK how I’ll feel about Bobby later on (I get the impression every long-term character on this show has their hateful phases xD), but in his introduction he said the last time he saw John he threatened to shoot him (“he causes that reaction in people”), so he’s so far the most relatable character around lol.

[warmbeebosoftbeebo]

I just began listening to Kala’s podcast from last week. It was q+a style and Z*ck was asking her the questions. The topic turned to social media and how toxic it can be. Z*ck said he’s no longer on social media and that there is a “smaller group of people who are overly negative and overly hateful.” Kala chimed in and said how social media used to be a fun outlet for her but now has become a “weird, hateful place” that makes her mad. (timestamp @ 11:22 / Founders Q+A / Nov. 23) Well did they think social media was going to be rainbows and butterflies after 20+ women accused him of sexual harassment?! Do you think this is there way of giving the middle finger to all of the drama surrounding the accusations? That’s what I perceived it as just by the tone of their voices. Also, at the beginning of the podcast Zack said he was hanging out with Panic’s manager and helping him with a project for a friend. So he is spending time with the rest of the panic team. We know he’s still friends w/B. It infuriates me how someone could be accused and proven in some cases of sexual harassment and not have any consequences. Yes he won’t be around fans anymore but did he even learn a lesson if B and the people around him treat him like nothing happened.

(this is rather jumbled, but i wanted to respond before spring rolled around)

i listened to it and the other ones with zack (unless there’s one with him from the last couple weeks, in which case i missed that one). is there a masterlist of what was said about zack? there’s been several accusations, but i don’t think it’s been anywhere close to 20 women for sexual harassment, and there was only one accusing him of anything physical/sexual assault (which gives me pause, because it’s the only one, and anonymous, whereas there’s patterns, corroboration, etc with the non-physical ones. i will say it says something that breezy found the sexual assault of the 13 year old plausible. that’s how awful she found him. that’s how awful her experiences with him were. him doing that was in line with her experiences with him. maybe they reflect “jokes” he made, for example.)

i can understand kala being upset; i honestly feel bad for her. especially considering how some people commented on her and her dog’s instagram going on about what trash zack was, that she should leave him, etc. but it’s kind of ironic for her to be talking about trauma, sexual assault, etc on her podcast but... she didn’t seem.. prepared or equipped to deal with this. i do like what she said about cancel culture, but it does leave me wondering what she’s read/seen. (obviously fandom twitter in particular is a dumpster fire but the whole fire zack hall thing started off mostly serious, honest, a lot less anonymous, little rumour mongering, etc and therefore, a lot more credible than what followed.)

it is of course a lot harder when it’s a man you love who’s accused of certain things and definitely did other things that are sexually harassive, unethical, misogynist, and/or pornographic. most find it easy to say “death to rapists” “believe victims” and whatnot until it hits close to home (husband, lover, brother, father...). especially when (and i’ve said this before) the man isn’t a monster (breezy and dallon probably disagree). 

i don’t think he is. this isn’t a marilyn manson, harvey weinstein, r kelly, etc situation. (there’s no “fixing” those men, they won’t change, and i’m prepared to call those men and their ilk sadistic, psychopathic, narcissistic, punishing, etc and irredeemable. won’t be upset to hear that they died. i’d even say if a victim killed them, they should damn well get a fucking medal and a parade.) 

this isn’t about the extremes of male sexual behavior and ethics, it’s about the normal. pretty much everything (except zack fetishizing people with amputated limbs that breezy alleged), barring touching the 13 year old, alleged and proven is completely within the realm of normal male behaviour. (and even men assaulting adolescent girls is a lot more common and normal than we think. even then, these are mostly normal guys, not diagnosable as psychopathic or “pedophilic.”) if he’s a monster, frankly so are most men (and some women). 

that includes those outraged posters with uncles, dads, brothers, boyfriends...you probably love men and teen boys who have done the same kind of things. they likely even have women who are so hurt and disturbed by their actions they are where breezy was on him. i wonder what she’s read. has she read them all? has she read at least the named (breezy, ian, ian’s ex ren, dallon) and sourced allegations (links to his twitter)? 

i wish things (behind the scenes/with panic, with b, with breezy, ian, dallon...) would come out, even if on the level of it being handled “in house”. it honestly being recognized, investigated, and handled. obviously, it done privately, we won’t know, but there’s obviously a lot that’s not been done. breezy isn’t making shit up for “outrage points” or “victim points” or whatever. there’s good reasons she thinks as she does about him. and i bet she’s angry and bewildered that brendon doesn’t see it, or why the fact that it is within the realm of normal male behavior provides cover for it. 

the more common something is, the harder it is to see as wrong (harassment, misogyny, demeaning, etc). the more it is actually aligned with mainstream culture, masculinity and male sexuality, the more difficult it is to see the problem. because if one sees the problem, one sees most of male culture/sexuality/bonding/etc as a problem, most men as a problem. it involves looking at himself, his other friends, his male family members... too. looking at jokes he laughed at, jokes he cracked. what he and other men watch as humour, as porn. and so on.

[dumbassscout]

i see a lot of 13 yr olds on tumblr these days, so id like to share some advice i wish i had known using tumblr at age 13.

this is also probably not an original idea from me lol, someone has got to have done this before. i would usually put this under a cut but ive decided not to for now

be aware that this site is like NOTORIOUSLY harmful. you may think you’re above it or too mature for it to hurt you, but trust me, you aren’t. since you will probably not be stopped by that warning, maybe take some precautions/keep some stuff in mind to stay safe.

i had tumblr savior for my first experiences with the site. im pretty sure it still works and it’s regularly updated, so take a look into that. it blocks posts with certain keywords from being seen on your radar, and can also push/allow posts with other keywords to always be shown. i would advise getting it or a similar extension to custom block triggering/harmful content.

don’t put other/more popular users in your fandom/community on a pedestal. they’re people behind a blog, just like you are. don’t feel intimidated by the people in your own community, they are just people the same way you are a person. they can mess up at times, and so can you.

making friends is a great thing on this site, but keep an eye on new online friends’ behaviors. it is exciting to meet new people, but you want to be aware of toxic friends. same goes for your mutuals. overall, keep people on this site at an arm’s length until you’ve gotten to know them enough personally to know that they’re genuine people. as you get older you can relax on this, but as a young teen it’s better to be hyperaware than to be blissfully ignorant as you get hurt.

onto more broad things, your theme doesn’t have to be perfect. you dont have to make a custom html/edited html website theme for your blog, you can leave it as tumblr default. if you enjoy organizing that, then by all means go ahead! but don’t feel like it is necessary for your blog, most of the time you will get a new theme set up and check on it on a month and find that it actually looks terrible to you. if you’d rather just have it as a basic/default site, then that is perfectly normal.

your blog’s theme/topic is your choice, and can be uniquely you. some people have many blogs for many things, just a few, or just one with everything. it is up to you how you want to do it! the themes you choose, topics, are up to you. fads and trends are cool but finding what works for you personally is way more fun. your blog is supposed to be fun. you are supposed to enjoy using tumblr. don’t compromise that for a trend. make your blog(s) however you want, however it pleases you. it can feel pressuring to have a perfect blog, but it’s better to just make your appearance the way it would make you happy.

also, tag systems are awesome! but they are not necessary unless you’re tagging trigger warnings. always tag those! but i know a lot of people have personal tagging systems to organize their blog, which is totally cool! but again, personal tag systems are not necessary, and if they feel unnecessary to you, don’t use them. but again, tag triggering content, especially if you are asked to.

archiving/deleting/creating new blogs is a whole other process. some people like to start with a clean slate every time they switch to a new fandom, and let their old user be archived or deleted. this is perfectly respectable (and probably the right thing to do) personally, i just switch my blog over to whatever im feeling that month and people can unfollow if they no longer enjoy my blog (i dont have that big of a following on this blog). it’s really a personal decision, and if you want to restart your blog you will know when to/if you want to.

reblog art, but never “repost” it. aka dont take the image and post it on your own blog, just reblog it from the original poster. its common sense but not everyone knows? idk

if you end up having some or many followers, make sure to check yourself. appreciate your followers, respect them. they are people with blogs. just like you. don’t let a high number inflate your ego way out of proportion, it’s easy to fall into that sense of power.

respect people’s pronouns. even if you for some reason have a disagreement with them, or you don’t understand why/how their identity works, just use the correct pronouns that they ask you to. it costs you zero dollars and zero cents, and is incredibly respectful

as a young teen, don’t get involved/let yourself get buried in tumblr-wide discourse. examples of this include the bi vs pan debate, flag discourse etc. most ppl who i know who were attentive to things similar to that at a young age ended up being affected negatively by it. pay some attention to what pertains to you and also pay attention to what you can identify as right or wrong, but don’t let people’s opinions on your dash influence you in times of discourse. go and look at both sides of those kinds of debates if you’re interested, and form an opinion from there.

speaking of which, sometimes people will just post their takes on literally anything and youll come across it. take everything with a grain of salt unless there is links to proof (if applicable, not always needed). sometimes bad takes just havent had someone to reblog and disprove yet.

speaking of discourse, there is always discourse on this site in every fandom, every community. form your own opinions always, but keep your moral compass in mind. don’t compromise your morals and sense of right and wrong to enjoy certain fan-media. if something seems off, it probably is.

people make mistakes, and if someone did something kind of shitty/had a terrible take/belief (not irredemably shitty, those ppl do not need ur attention) and they genuinely apologize for the shit they did and learn from it, move on. leave some shit in the past, holding grudges isnt good for your mental health and people change. but again, always take things with a grain of salt.

you dont need a high follower count to get traction on your posts. it might help, but you can have a low follower count with high interaction or a high follower count with little to know interaction. the best advice i have is to tag what it is relevant to, whether it’s a fandom, aesthetic, etc and people who regularly check those tags will find it.

if you ever get anon hate for some reason, just delete it from ur inbox n move on. ppl who send anon hate want to see you post it and respond to it. if they said some really really MEAN shit though, it may be best to talk to a friend about it for comfort, or take a break from tumblr for a hot min. most importantly, report it, close your ask box/change it to no anonymous asks.

if at some point you choose to voice your opinion about a highly debated topic at the time, be aware that people who disagree might attack you for it. be aware, and be safe about it.

a lot of people swear by xkit. i have never used it in my life, but from the looks of it, it makes using tumblr so much more bearable. it breaks sometimes with tumblr updates, but apparently it’s worth it. again, look into it, but it’s not necessary to use the site.

do niche shit. start sideblogs without a plan in mind. make aus, make art, make writing, or make nothing at all. reblog the things you love wherever you want them to be reblogged. comment on people’s creations if you love them, they probably would love to hear how much you enjoyed it. appreciate how wonderful the better part of this site is, enjoy the free access to view and appreciate others’ creations and ideas.

i would put a lot more on here, but i feel like 20 is probably too much already. if anyone has anything to add, definitely rb with ur addition

overall, do the things you love on here, keep yourself safe, and be respectful of others.

[captainmarvelrb]

Dysphoria Diaries: Why “Captain Marvel” is my Perfect Transgender Movie

So, this is like a special feature, the first of many I’m sure, but this entry is going to be much longer than usual but I promise it’s worth a read!

So, first thing’s first, it’s been a roller coaster of a year. Started it fully certain that I was a heterosexual, cis-man, and now, in November, I’m sure I’m a transgender, gay woman so, yeah, bit of a big flip there and it can feel pretty overwhelming.

BUT thinking about one film in particular has really helped me out a LOT during this whole scary yet incredibly exciting period, and that film is “Captain Marvel”.

So basically, I was a big fan of Captain Marvel before the movie, back all the way since 2013 and she had just RECENTLY ditched the awful leotard for the kick-ass red, yellow, and blue, and I still remember the first time I fell in love with her. It felt shallow, but it was a poster! I saw a poster of her in my local comic shop, knew nothing about her...but I KNEW I needed that poster because she looked SO COOL. That COSTUME! And then, one thing lead to another, started reading her stories, and then, for one reason or another, I quickly decided, “This woman is MY FAVORITE marvel character. Period.” In this house we LOVE Captain Marvel (hence the username, obvi).

And so I held on, rooting for YEARS for my girl to show up and kick ass in the MCU, and when her film got announced in 2015 I was OVER THE MOON! And then, 2019 hit, and despite all the TOXIC fucking pissbaby, dude-bro men, I got to see her movie, I loved it, and my girl cracked a billion at the box office so, yeah, it was a pretty good year for me :)

And now it’s been a few months, and I’ve had the chance to relive this film many, many times and each time I loved it more but, it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to give it a rewatch...that is, until I figured out that I am, in actuality, a trans woman. A realization that, in all actuallity, I should have realized a long time ago...

So, why has this significantly changed the way I view this film? Well, a film, any film, is subjective and how you view life significantly affects how you view movies...and I didn’t think it was possible...but now that I know I’m trans this movie has COMPLETELY changed for me and I love it SO MUCH MORE.

Because I feel like it’s my story...I finally see myself here in this very story...

Hear me out here.

The movie starts, as we know, with Carol loving far away on Hala, loving her life as “Vers”, a fierce and promising Kree warrior. And ever-loving badass

And this is where I see myself, at least the version of me that existed when this year started, because even though Vers is seemingly happy, comfortable with who she is and what she does and with how her life is, there’s a part of her that secretly feels restrained. She’s purposefully being held back, she’s not like the others, and she doesn’t even realize it. She’s playing the role of Vers, even if she doesn’t know that it’s just a role...

This is how I was until literally this year. When this year started, I “knew” I was a man, I was straight, and that was that, simple. And sure, some things felt off. I always hated the idea of body hair anywhere on me, I always pick female avatars in games when I have the choice, and I have a super strong affinity for strong, female characters but no, it’s nothing, and I’ve got an excuse and a coping mechanism for all of it. (I.e. Repressing my feelings about my body, I just pick women because I’m a MAN™️ and I just like looking at women, and, my favorite, “it’s just a coincidence”).

I was playing a role...and I played it well. I believed it. I didn’t think about it.

Until something happened that made me question that...

For Carol, it was falling to earth, coming home. For me, it was education and my LGBTQ friends. For both of us, it was exposure...exposure to the very thing we’d been repressing for so damn long.

Carol spends time on earth, realizes she has a life there, and slowly but surely starts to understand that what she’s been told, by those who expect her to play a certain role, is not the truth.

Me, it was going to college, getting away from smalltown, USA and actually spending time learning about and spending time with LGBTQ individuals. Smalltown USA was very conservative, I was not, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have an effect on me. I knew that LGBTQ individuals didn’t choose to be that way, therefore I didn’t hate them and disparage them like most of my peers, but in environments like that with minimal education on the matters...sometimes you can’t help it. Some things just stick. Bad stereotypical and homophobic thoughts.

Until I went to college. A liberal college. There I learned more, and a lot of those ingrained, toxic thoughts were dissolved and replaced with understanding and appreciation and respect. This increased much, much further when my girlfriend revealed to me that she was bisexual and also non-binary. And she helped me more than anyone else, because for the first time I had an actual friend who was an active and knowledgeable member of the LGBTQ community. She taught me SO much...

And it only took 3 years with her, 3 years of growing thoughts and possibilities...before I asked her some important questions.

Carol said, “I think I used to have a life here.”

I said, “I think I would prefer it if I was in a female body.”

And then, from that first simple, personal observation both of us, Carol and I, grew and grew, understanding more and more as we went on our own personal journeys. Fortunately for both of us, we weren’t alone. We had someone to talk to...

And although we had all the evidence in front of us, and although we knew something was wrong, we stayed in denial for the longest time. Despite everything I had said, everything I felt, I decided that I wasn’t trans, because I thought I would be fine living life in a male body. I decided that “non-binary” would be a better descriptor. Even “Non-Binary Trans Femme”, and I even came out to my friends as such. But, even though I did so, it never really felt right. But It meant I didn’t need to change. I could pretend that nothing was different. It wasn’t flat-out denial...but it was a denial.

Carol stayed in denial until Telos showed her the black box...I stayed in denial until my partner told me how it was, made me stop lying to myself, and we had some more long conversations.

And she told me something that I still haven’t forgotten.

She told me, in regards to what I call myself, “You need to do whatever makes you feel powerful.”

And it clicked...because I didn’t feel powerful as I was...because, in my mind, powerful goes hand in hand with the word “woman”. And everything fell into place. I would feel powerful if I was in a female body. I would feel confident leaving the house. I would be happy with the way I looked. I would feel that everything inside would finally be justified, comfortable, and happy...it was the moment I broke that facade. I realized I’d been playing a role. The role of a man. A role that had been holding me back.

Since I learned I was trans, I’ve felt happy, happier than I have felt in a long time. I’m excited. I’m energetic. I’ve started working out, running, I’ve started taking care of myself. I’m eating healthier, snacking less. I’m writing again, happily. I’m I afraid of what others think or say. I feel a weight off my shoulders.

And it 100% made me feel like Carol when she breaks her regulator, and finally goes binary.

Because that was the moment that she accepted who she was, and stopped playing a role. And that was the moment when she truly became powerful. A force of nature. Earth’s Mightiest Hero.

And she became unstoppable...and that’s exactly how I feel right now in this moment...I feel free and proud

Because I am lucky. I have such a supportive friend group around me right now, such important people who have embraced me, who still love me, and it makes me feel like I’m shining, glowing like a Star. It makes me feel like I got something to look forward to, and it makes me so eager and excited.

I still haven’t told my parents, and I don’t know how that will go...but here...Carol is once again nothing more than an inspiration to me. Because...

...or them, or anyone else. I am valid, I am beautiful, and I will be amazing. Because this is my journey, and just like Carol it’s only just beginning.

And, you know, this post may feel like it ended up going no where but I don’t care. It helps me keep it together, it makes me happy, so I’m gonna do It and I’m gonna post it. Because I think it’s cool. I think it’s amazing that such an important character in my life has played such a new, important, and unexpected role in what feels like a new life...and that matters so much to me. And me alone.

Thanks for reading :)

It’s the little things...

[sometimesrosy]

Anonymous said:Have you ever thought about the possibility of your theories about the show ending up being wrong? Because when someone gives an opinion different than yours, you like to make them feel like they're wrong. In the end everything you say is an assumption, so don't act like you know what's really going to happen.

Have I...

lol.

Yes dear. 

I think about how I might be wrong ALL THE TIME. 

That’s why I double check ALL (every single one) of my theories against the canon text and show, and then double check it again. Does this work? Has it been jossed? Was I off? No? Cool. It’s still working now that we know more? All theories are an interpretation of canon. A speculation on where it might go. An understanding of what it means. Stories are about making meaning and there is room for many interpretations within the canon. I say this all the time. This is part of what “ship and let ship” is about. That’s in my header.

(long rant ahead. also note how much MORE time I spend thinking about this issue than you do. thinking thinking thinking. you ask, i think about what you said. it turns out i think you’re wrong. go figure.)

A different opinion is never a problem. What a silly statement. The problem is when people ignore canon. Or create their own. Do I LIKE to make them feel like they’re wrong? Again. Silly. This isn’t about feelings. People send me asks about what I think about canon. If I think your theory doesn’t work, that’s what I think. 

Literary analysis is NOT actually just guessing. A speculation is not an assumption. An interpretation is not an assumption. A theory must be supported by the text. If the text does not support your theory or in fact disproves it, then your theory doesn’t work. I’m not the one that makes it wrong. Your lack of evidence is. An assumption lacks supporting evidence. A theory should have canon evidence and logic and use literary or film techniques to defend it. (if you pay attention in class in high school or study it in college you can learn these things.)

BUT if you don’t follow the canon and check your theories against canon, your assumptions will fail to be proven and then will actually be wrong. It IS possible to have wrong theories. It IS possible to be wrong. If you say, for instance, that Clarke Griffin is NOT the hero, you are wrong. This is not an opinion or an assumption. In fact that’s such an OBVIOUS bit of canon fact that I am astonished at how often I have to call fandom on being wrong about it. Yes. Wrong. It is NOT a valid interpretation, I don’t care how much you don’t like Clarke.  And you know what? It’s kind of funny when people are shocked that, say, season 6 spent so much time on Clarke and not enough on their fave. LOL. I mean. The posters didn’t give it away? I mean you didn’t even HAVE to stick to the text on this one although you could. ET is the actual star of the show. 

Ok well, in some shows the villain is the star could be your argument. In which case you NEED to have the evidence that she’s the villain not the hero. And, that, is actually not there. Morally gray hero? Yes. Villain, no. Moments of villainy? Yes, that’s part of the story, but when people say she only thinks of herself, the canon disproves that again and again. And again. Sometimes directly after a side character calls her selfish. Shaw calls her selfish? 2 minutes later she risks her life to try and save his. If you ignore that, your theory just falls completely apart. And if I say you’re wrong about it and you decide to attack my character instead of coming up with the evidence for your theory to dispute me, then fuck you. You’re no longer worth my time. Stick to the text. Ad hominem attacks do NOT support your damn theory.

Sometimes people ARE wrong. Sometimes theories are wrong. Sometimes, even feelings are wrong when you’ve misinterpreted the situation and are jumping to conclusions about what it means. Sometimes fandom is full of shit. Sometimes everyone goes off on some sort of groupthink dogma and they don’t bother paying attention to canon because they think their opinions and fanon is more real than canon. That may be true with fanfiction, which is a fan created content, but it’s not true with canon. CANON is on the screen and nowhere else. If it’s on screen, it’s canon, and that includes camera work and costumes and editing and music as well as dialogue, even if fandom doesn’t know how to interpret those things because they don’t study it, it’s still part of canon. Fan commentary, reviews, cast and crew interviews even JR’s tweets-- none of that is canon.

I have been checking my Bellarke theories against the canon since 3.05, Hakeldama, when I came up with them. We are now going into season 7, and the Bellarke theories are STILL working, even if I have been off on the timing of them. (I have adjusted those theories by double checking with the canon and seeing what I might have been wrong about [the story is longer term than I thought, not as focused on some things I thought were important, one whole story instead of seasonal, and more interested in building the love story than in resolving it.])

BUT I am also aware that even if I triple check my theories against canon and am super sure that the story is going that way, that The 100 is NOT my story, it’s JR’s, and he doesn’t have to go the way I want him to. Sometimes I get so enamored of a story I’m telling that I think it has to happen, like the time travel theory I had this season. I said from the outset that I was getting too attached to it and asked people to talk me down. They didn’t. But when certain details started popping up in canon, I let go of my theories that no longer fit. There’s nothing wrong with this.

I think JR’s a good writer and is staying true to his story, so that’s why I put so much effort into trying to figure out what story he’s telling. But there’s also the possibility that he’s not as good a writer as he seems, and he won’t be able to pull all the threads together. In which case, my theories would be wrong. And then there’s the possibility that I’m looking at the wrong things and he’s not really as good as I think he is, like with D&D and GOT, the evidence of misogyny and racism and toxic masculinity was all there and I chose to overlook it and focus on the good things. And also, Hollywood is a shallow business and it is ALWAYS a possibility that a show will sell out audience and story for the glam and cash of hollywood. There is no guarantee that I’m right about my theories on how The 100 will end, even if I’ve been right so far. If I am wrong, nothing will happen. It’s a tv show. I’ll move on. Did GOT break me? no. I moved on. It means nothing in the grand scheme of things. I am aware I can be wrong. Lol.

But as far as I can tell, I’m one of the only ones who actually pays attention when I AM wrong and says, “okay, I was wrong about that one. Where did my theory go wrong and why? How far can I take it back so that I can come up with a theory that works?”

When I’m wrong, I’ll fucking TELL you I’m wrong. I’ll tell you where I went wrong. HOW I went wrong. And why. But for some reason, that’s not enough with you guys. You want me to GROVEL. You want me to fall to my knees and tear my hair out and declare that I am not worthy to theorize and then to toss all my other theories out too because I am BAD BAD BAD SHAME ON ME. 

no.

Part of analyzing a show as it goes along is taking chances on theories that MIGHT NOT WORK OUT, and then changing those theories when you get more canon information. It is OKAY to be wrong. That’s how you refine your theories. 

Being good at interpreting fiction happens BECAUSE you don’t think your theories are right and canon is wrong. You have to let go of your ego enough to say, “hmm, I was wrong, that’s not the story that was being told.” A lot of fandom decides that their theories are right and CANNOT be wrong and anyone who says they are wrong is down right EVIL. Listen. They gave me the name Demon over that. Not just me. They call canon evil for not sticking to their theories. They call JR evil for telling his own stories and not the one they think is happening. When he killed off L or didn’t make Bellarke happen when fandom thought it was time, or made Bellamy struggle when they thought he should be fine, or made B/E happen when fandom didn’t want DIDN’T WANT, instead of letting the man tell the damn story he wanted to tell, y’all said he was evil, a bad writer, failed. Y’all said the story was wrong and fandom was right and HAD BEEN BETRAYED. 

Me? I was like, ok what did I miss? Oh there it is. That’s the story JR is telling. YOU, you’re like YOU ARE A HUMAN FAILURE FOR NOT COMPLYING WITH MY HEADCANON. wtf? When I don’t understand a storyline, like Clarke in s3a, I don’t say that she’s OOC or the writing is bad, I ask myself “what does this mean?” and I try connect the dots of canon and understand what the writer is saying. Because when you are analyzing a piece of fiction, it’s the CREATOR you need to understand, not your own feelings. When you’re doing therapy, that’s when you investigate your own feelings about canon. I’ve done that too, and it is a perfectly valid way to engage with fiction, but it is NOT interpretation.

As much as you hate to think the world doesn’t revolve around you, there’s a lot of this world that exists outside of you. There are things you don’t understand and there are things you are not even AWARE existing that you don’t know about. I have never said I can’t be wrong. That would be stupid. But I do understand how stories work, how they fit together, how you can make sense of them. All theories are just that. Theories. A speculation on where the story could go or what it means based on canon. The speculation part is our thoughts. But it’s BASED on the canon.

This is an ask blog. People ASK me for my opinion. I give them my opinion. I do not say everyone’s theories are delightful, because everyone’s theories are not delightful. Sometimes they don’t work. I am a book nerd, a sci fi geek, an english major, a high school english and humanities teacher, a writer, an armchair psychologist, and obsessed with storytelling, archetypes and mythos... and you want me to pretend that people who don’t follow the story are just as right as the people who are rigorous about canon? Nope. 

DO THE WORK. YOU get it right. Stop pretending that you can spout any bullshit you want and be crowned a smartypants. 

You wanna ask me about your feelings and life trauma and how you loved CL because you want to be as strong and beautiful as L?? Hell yeah. I will sit with you and work with you through your story. Completely valid and supremely important. Actually more important than fandom or the 100 or any ship. But that’s YOUR story, not JR’s. 

If you want to tell me that CL is the main relationship of The 100 I’m just gonna tell you you’re wrong, because you’re relating to YOUR story, not JR’s. JR’s story is Bellarke as the central relationship. That is canon. The theory that CL is the main ship and endgame DOES NOT FIT WITH CANON. It cannot be supported in canon. When I analyze the 100 I am analyzing JR’s story, not fandom’s stories.

THIS IS AN ASK BLOG. When people send me asks, they are going to get my perspective as an authority about stories, science fiction, symbolism, archetypes, story structure, character development, how stories work, analysis, etc. If you send me an ask assuming that I will just nod along to whatever you say, you are making an error in judgment. 

I am a literal high school teacher. I have the authority to assess your damn theories. I have the education, the training, the experience, the authorization to do so. I have assessed state wide exams, grading essays and theories and analysis and writing. This is not some esoteric skill. It’s rather boring. It is high school english. I could post a damn rubric for how I assess theories. If you came up with theories like a high school essay (intro, 3 supporting statements/pieces of evidence, conclusion) I’d probably agree with you a lot more than i agree with some of the nonsense this fandom comes up with.

My standards for you are apparently higher than your own standards for yourself. You’ll just babble any shit you want and think it’s awesome. Fake it ‘til you make it, right? I am not faking it. I actually know what I’m talking about I worked hard at it, for DECADES. And I refuse to pretend that some silly, unsupported assertion is true just because some cool fandom person says it. First of all, not all of them know how to use a dictionary. And if you’re going to build a theory based on a phrase that you don’t know the meaning of, then your whole theory falls apart. You’d think this would be a rare event but it is sadly not. I’m not better. I just know how to google terms I’m not clear on. I also have the ethics to not lie about what things mean just to push my agenda. (sadly also not a rare event in fandom. you should google things to make sure people are not lying to you.)

This is an ask blog. I pretty much only post responses that people have ASKED for. You ask me a question. I answer. I do NOT go to other people’s posts and tell them they are wrong. That is an unsolicited opinion. All my opinions are solicited. I don’t want to argue with anyone. I try to stay out of conversations of theories I don’t like. I don’t dispute their theories unless they ask me (by sending me an ask) to dispute them. Do I have opinions? Yes. Do I make statements about general fandom theories? Yes. Do I ALSO critique fandom, you bet your sweet patootie I do, that’s part of being a teacher, evaluating how the class is learning, understanding the dynamics, analyzing the culture of the class. Do you like that? I DONT CARE. It’s my blog. My thoughts. My theories. Who asked you to read my blog anyway? Not me. I don’t beg for followers. And fandom is so slow right now, i have hardly any interaction. I keep controversial ships and names out of my tags. What the hell are you doing in my inbox, anyway?

Where did you get the balls to go to someone else’s blog and complain that they think their theories are right. I came up with them. With evidence to support them. I wrote essays/meta about them. If I thought they were wrong I wouldn’t think them, i’d change them. I work hard on making sure they’re right. When the canon moves forward and leaves my theories behind I drop the theories or adjust them. 

You are so rude. And so ignorant. And I’m supposed to be the wise and mature one and not give offense. 

Screw that. THIS is why I can tell people that sometimes they’re wrong. 

BECAUSE SOMETIMES THEY ARE WRONG.

Get used to it. You. Personally. You are wrong. If you don’t like being told you are wrong. If you don’t like the FEELING of being wrong.

THEN DO BETTER.

Those theories you’re spouting that are wrong? 

FIX THEM.

Go back to the canon and look for evidence to support your ideas. Think about what the story is saying and where it is going and how things are connected. Compare it to another story. Look for symbolism, parallels, character development, story arcs. Speculate about what it means and where i could go, and use evidence from the text to show how it all goes together. 

I have an OBLIGATION to point out when theories are wrong because THAT IS MY JOB. I am an educator even if I don’t teach in classes anymore. 

I honestly don’t understand people who send their asks to a fucking high school teacher and then get pissy when she, like, assesses their theories as if she were a high school teacher. Do you not GET it? Do you not understand who you’re sending asks to? Do you think I won’t be me when confronted with your ask? I’m not a wide eyed ingenue who just loves how awesome fandom is and thinks it’s the superest bestest thing in the world, and can do no wrong and is never wrong. I’m a cranky middle aged geek lady who has been writing and reading and watching science fiction since the 70s. I am not particularly social and am very independent and am not asking for anyone’s permission to think for myself. I’m sarcastic and overly analytical and can get swept away into stories. And I am a HARD worker. I put more energy into analyzing your asks and theories than you put into analyzing the show. And that’s despite having chronic fatigue. 

If your theory is pointed out as wrong, then examine it. See if the criticisms might be true, where you might be off, and figure out a new theory that works. I do that all the time.

I am not the one who makes your theories good or bad, you are. I’m just the one who points out what you’re missing and why I don’t agree with you. 

If you care about my opinion so much 

THEN FIX YOUR DAMN BAD THEORIES and stop blaming me because you don’t get a not very complicated tv show. ALL you have to do is pay more attention to canon than you do to fanon/headcanons/fandom. That’s it. Just stick to the text. 

[runicmagitek]

Hi! Question: Do you have any tips on world building? Or on organizing world building for oneself? Also, do you still write original stuff while writing fanfiction?

Apologies if I didn’t respond to this right away. Like any process in writing, worldbuilding can be a personal and individual aspect. Just because someone does something a certain way doesn’t mean that’s how it has to be. Finding out what works for you takes time and effort to figure out and thus a lot of trial and error. But that’s the case for writing drafts and editing and coming up with characters. And if you’re willing to do the work, then I promise it will come more easily to you.

That said, I also had to put thought into this, because… well, I don’t really put much thought into worldbuilding these days – it just kind of happens. But I think I’ve organized my chaotic thoughts enough to maybe share something useful. Hopefully it makes sense and I hope this helps you!

The most important part of worldbuilding has nothing to do with worldbuilding: focus on your story first. I find it far easier to establish what story it is you want to tell and some base characters in said story. Only then can you figure out what world it is you want to place them in. I know some people who do it the other way around, but that method doesn’t work for me; you can always tweak your world to better fit your story and while maybe you can make an argument that the same can be said about your story and characters for the sake of the world, it’s more effort than it should be, at least in my experience. So let your characters and story be solid first. Know what it is you wish to convey and then make that world for them to play in so that it can better highlight the plot and the characters’ motives.

And then comes the worldbuilding… but what is worldbuilding? I’m sure hundreds of people have their own specific definitions, but for me? Worldbuilding is what makes up the day-to-day life of the characters and helps highlight their strengths, weaknesses, and motives within the plot. Worldbuilding is the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the jobs they have, the transportation they take, the communities they interact with, and so much more. And what’s important to you and your story might vary for another person or hell, it might even change for you with each story you write.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Ok, cool, but like how?” Best example is to think of yourself. Stop and look at your room. What does that tell about you? What aspects would you include in a story to help the reader better understand your situation and thus the overall story? Is it the signed band poster of the first concert you went to? Is it the ugly, outdated rug you’ve been stuck with your whole life and never bothered to replace? Is it the stack of dirty plates on your desk you need to bring to the kitchen to wash? Is it the collection of stuffed animals you’ve kept because each one reminds you of the person who gave it to you? Is it that everything matches and fits the color scheme of your favorite colors? Find those things that resonate with you, both the positive and the negative. That’s your worldbuilding.

What isn’t worldbuilding is needing to explain every damn thing that happens and exists. First and foremost, are your characters actual walking encyclopedias? Just like actual people, they don’t know everything. Some people remember particular things because maybe it’s more important to them or it was drilled in their head during school or they used to work for a particular company or area and thus know the odd bit of information. Unless you’re writing hard science fiction or hard fantasy, there is literally no need to explain everything. If it’s not progressing the plot or developing a character further, it doesn’t need to be in there.

For example, I live in a small town where there is a massive, abandoned textile mill. Like I’m talking several miles. It was super productive during WWII and provided things like parachutes for the war. The workers were also provided housing close by and those duplexes still exist. But since the 80s, it’s been out of business. It’s partially overgrown now and multiple people have gone in to try and knock it down to build something new and two of said people went bankrupt a quarter into said project. There have been talks of it being restored as housing unit or even a shopping area, though the ground has some sort of toxic stuff (lead? I can’t remember) and needs to be cleaned before that ever happens. I know this because I had to write a “high school level” research paper on it in 5th grade twenty years ago. I drive by this thing every day to work and the only thing that matters to me is that it kills my satellite radio signal when I drive by. Yes, I know random information about it. Does it remotely pertain to my personal story? Dear lord no.

That’s kind of the basic idea behind worldbuilding or at least how I approach it. There are plenty of resources online as to what you can think about specifically and questions to ask yourself (ie – magic systems, governments, town/city structures, etc. and if you don’t know where to look for those, feel free to shoot me another ask and I’ll compile a list for you!), but sometimes I feel less is more. Unless you’re writing a history textbook, there’s no reason all of that is going to pop up. As for organizing this? I make a separate folder in my Scrivener file titled Worldbuilding and shove in notes that pop up in my head so I can have them on hand in case I need to refer to them again in the future. It doesn’t need to be one big file; organize it in a fashion that works for you. I separate by categories and bullet point things.

To wrap up this worldbuilding discussion, I remember my many years spent doing stage productions. Us actors spent weeks, if not months memorizing our lines and perfecting interactions with the other characters. We focused on the story first and foremost. Yes, the stage manager and whoever they could rally together worked on the set and props, but they still referenced the same script we were using and they built their vision of the world on the stage to fit that. We only had five days to practice on stage, maybe even a handful of actual full run-throughs with the set and tech, and definitely no more than two weeks. It’s because the story itself mattered more than the world and thus the world only helped tell that story further instead of hindering it. Never forget that when you’re telling your own stories.

AND LASTLY! I do have ideas for original work. Before I dove back into fanfiction, I was working on an original novel, but some life events made me put it aside. Writing fics has been very comforting for me on multiple levels and I keep at it because of that (and because I love having interactions with other fans and with asks like this! So thank you!). I don’t know if I’ll return to that particular original work I was chipping away at; I’d probably need to rewrite it from the ground up at this point. I do have a few ideas in my head, one of which started as an AU for a rarepair in a small/old/sorta dead fandom I’m in (this sounds like my life) and I realized I was putting way too much effort into it as a fanfic and opted to maybe one day explore it as an original piece. I have a lot of notes on it, from characters to backstory to also worldbuilding! And for the two years, I’ve been adding onto this thing, the worldbuilding has changed the most, because I need to find that balance of it complimenting the story and characters ;) I’m sure I’ll write it one day. For now, I’m really happy writing fics.

[anonymouse-cat]

Oh the John creen hate was because when a girl talked about how he was a fucking weirdo for how close and inappropriate he was to his teen fans he and a bunch of authors bullied her alongside their fanbases which later blew up with how his record label was full of sexual predators which had sexual allegations that him and Hank allegedly covered up for them so...... I have no idea why people are selling it as if people turned against him in one night

Okay so I actually looked into this because Google is fucking free, and like half the shit you're saying isn't true or its been completely scrubbed from the web somehow. Yes, a tumblr user said he was a "creep" and felt he was weirdly close to teenage female fans. Other tumblr user glommed on and bashed his writing and urged him to respond. He did, admittedly a bit more aggressively than necessary, saying that the original tumblr post was accusing him of being a pedophile and saying such cavalier accusations belittle real victims. To be honest the original post did not accuse him of pedophilia or sexual assault, but it did draw similarities between him and pedophiles, so I can understand where he got the notion at least. Yes, he was too harsh in responding to an accusation that wasn't made. Yes, other authors came to his defense (on Twitter, a completely different app) to say he was a nice guy and not a pedophile, and yes I'm certain that the user who first posted wished they hadn't, and I believe they even deleted their page. Who's to say the original poster was even a teenage girl, I have seen no proof of that just people inferring based on the post. Do I agree that many famous and powerful people should've blamed a user for starting a rumor they didn't actually start? Hell no. Do I think that reacting to defend yourself or your friend is bad? Also hell no. I believe the situation could've been handled better by all involved, and John Green agreed and removed himself from social media for a year, and tumblr entirely.

As for your other point, there's no actual proof John or hank green were covering up the actions of a few of their dftba artists. Whenever one was exposed, they made statements regarding removing them from the dftba or vidcon, siding with the victims, and made videos addressing the topics at length. If you are specifically referring to Alex Day and the fact John Green warned girls from his videos that he tends to cheat on women as his somehow being aware of the underage abuse occurring, I don't know what to tell you except that's a major leap. Many people are friends with abusers and don't realize because of their manipulative personalities and society normalizing many toxic relationship traits. And while they collabed on videos, how often do you think two business partners are hanging out with their significant others or discussing romantic relationships?

So yeah, he definitely went off a little hard on that tumblr user when he should've just ignored it. And yes, people who were shitty turned out to work for/with him. But I really think people need to stop putting creators on this crazy platforms of perfection where if they ever make a mistake its a career ending blow. When looking this shit up I saw so many people saying "I'll never read his book again because he didn't respond exactly the way I want". Like okay cool, sorry he's just a fucking guy. He's made plenty of mistakes and he always will. But because he's famous and the internet is forever, he'll never ever get to live it down.

And to clarify, I really dont give a single shit about John Green. I just think he is a small drop in a big discussion around parasocial relationships, cancel culture, and general influencer culture. We all need to stop acting like we know those people because they show us 20 minutes if their day edited together for our consumption. We need to stop acting like they are perfect and incapable of mistakes. We need to stop acting like every mistake they've made defines them totally and completely, and redemption or growth are not options because now they're "bad" and bad people can't be good it would ruin the whole system. We also need to stop acting like it's okay to bully and harass people just because they're famous or behind a screen. They're still a fucking person with feelings and they deserve way more respect than people give. It's disgusting how okay it is to just tell people you hate them or they should go kill themselves because you don't like the content they make or the mistakes they've made. That is so not okay.

[burnouts3s3]

Sweet Blue Flowers, an anime review

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously.) Just the facts 'Cause you're in a Hurry! Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price for Season (MSRP): 38.12 USD Animation Studio: J.C. Staff Licensed and Localized by: Nozomi Entertainment, a studio of Right Stuf Inc. Audio: Japanese Audio with Subtitles available Length per Episode: 25 Minutes on average. 21 Without Intro and Ending song. Number of Discs: 3 DVD Discs in total.   Episodes per Disc: 3 or 4. Also on: Amazon Video and Crunchyroll, a subscription based service that allows streaming for shows. Free streaming is available with ads. Bonus Features: Clean opening, TV spots, character art gallery, and original U.S. trailer. How much I paid: Nothing. I viewed it on Crunchyroll. Number of Episodes: 11 Episodes Price per Episode: 3.50 USD on physical. 1.99 if bought digitally. My Personal Biases: I actually saw Sweet Blue Flowers a while back but never reviewed it. I like other shows in the Shoujo Ai genre such as Mai Hime, Mai Otome, Maria Watches over Us, Strawberry Panic and yes, even Kannazuki no Miko/Destiny of the Shrine Maiden.   My Verdict: Beautiful. Heartwarming. Cute. Incomplete. Like most anime adaptations based off a manga, Sweet Blue Flowers makes the mistake of trying to adapt directly from the source material. Unfortunately, with already slow pacing halting to a standstill, most viewers may not have the patience to sit through Sweet Blue Flowers. Add to that Akira’s development happening later in the series, and you have a beautiful but unfinished story that’s told. Give this one a shot and read the rest in the manga.   Warning: SPOILERS Sweet Blue Flowers, an anime review

When the term adaptation comes to mind, the team working behind the project has to make a decision on how closely to adapt from the source material. Too often, many creative teams take the source material as a bible and shoot from there, not realizing the act of translating from one medium to another means certain elements get lost in the shuffle and things that worked in the manga do not work on the screen. While long running Shounen titles such as Naruto, Bleach, Dragonball Z, One Piece, Fairy Tail, Black Clover, My Hero Academia, Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter, and others benefit from direct page to screen adaptation, Shoujo Ai or Yuri series usually have to operate on not only a limited budget but a limited run time as well. And doing a direct adaptation of a long running manga for 12 episodes can usually result in disaster. Someone once said “You can make a good adaptation out of anything, but sometimes you have to rip its guts out.” This is why series like Kannazuki no Miko/Destiny of the Shrine Maiden worked (in spite of itself, I’ll remind readers and fans of the show) since it added characterization and plot elements that wasn’t in the original source material and wasn’t directly adapting it (Thank God!). Meanwhile, a show like Sasameki Koto/Whispered Words stumbles because it’s trying so hard to do a direction 1 for 1 adaptation from manga to screen that newcomers who weren’t familiar with the manga got bored. (You want to know how badly Sasameki Koto did as an anime in terms of sales and viewership? The anime series bombed so badly, it isn’t even localized in the States and was rumored to kill the Yuri genre for the next few years.)   And unfortunately, trying too hard to adapt directly from the source material is the main thing that kills Sweet Blue Flowers. Akira Okudaira, who is an entering high school student into Fujigaya Girls Academy, becomes reacquainted with her childhood friend Fumi Manjōme whom she has not seen for ten years. Fumi is attending Matsuoka Girl's High School where she quickly becomes friends with a handsome third-year student named Yasuko Sugimoto. Akira joins her school's drama club with her friend and classmate Kyōko Ikumi, who is in love with Yasuko, though Yasuko turns her down. Yasuko and Fumi become a couple, and Fumi comes out to Akira who is at first unsure on how to act, but still tries to support Fumi's new relationship. The main focus centers on Fumi. Fumi, despite being the taller of the two girls, is a shy unsure introvert unsure of her own sexuality and sexual orientation. She deals with heartbreak after heartbreak, seeing girls she has crushes on, such as her biological cousin which she had a fling with to Yasuko, an older girl who might or might not have sexual feelings with her. Fumi’s day to day strife and her coming to terms with her sexuality is one of the more interesting struggles of a lesbian character having to see play on screen. It’s subtle but tangible. Every so often, you see the shifts in movements and physical ticks that show off how uncomfortable Fumi is and certain scenes where characters are simply talking idly hit like a truck. As I go back and re-watch the series, I lot of things that flew over my head the first time started making sense. For example, I actually related to the character of Yasuko Sugimoto, thinking she made a good pair with Fumi, only to realize on subsequent viewings that Sugimoto was actually using Fumi for her own emotional growth. It’s an interesting take on abusive/toxic relationships; Sugimoto doesn’t intend to cause harm but her own immaturity and impulsiveness end up causing harm anyway.   So when Sugimoto asks to come back to Fumi after Sugimoto hastily broke up with her and Fumi flat out rejects her, it’s just the best feeling in the world. Fumi has actually grown in her own way and found confidence in herself without needing to be in a relationship. The biggest casualty of the show is Akira. While she’s present and does have character, her development is sidelined since it comes much later in the series. As such, it’s weird how the show keeps coming back to her as though she were an important figure when the show itself covers more about the relationship between Fumi and Sugimoto. Based on the show’s advertisement and introduction, you’d expect Akira to be a bigger part of the show. So it’s unfortunate she’s pushed to the background for the Sugimoto and Fumi relationship. Worst yet, since the chapters in question were rather short and minimalist, the anime had to pad out certain scenes to stretch them out. For example, Fumi has a conversation about how to use her phone. This plays no major role whatsoever in the plot of the episode. The final episode ends on Christmas Eve as Akira and Fumi spend time looking at their old elementary school. It is at that point Fumi realizes she’s been in love with Akira this whole time. But before the two can pursue their eventual relationship, the anime series ended. Yuri adaptations do not tend to sell well and with the lackluster sales and ratings, Sweet Blue Flowers, the anime, was cancelled while the rest of the story continues on in the manga. Ken’ichi Kasai’s direction is subtle but powerful. Fumihiko Takayama’s writing takes the best of the manga and explodes it onto the screen. Takefumi’s Haketa’s music will move your heartstrings. But, the story is sadly incomplete. Unfortunately, there a little to no extras in the DVD/Blu-ray Release. Just the Opening and Ending song with no text. CAVEAT: I don’t hate Sweet Blue Flowers; it’s just that adapting a manga this slow and this subtle was always going to be an uphill battle. Add to that the short amount of content (11 episodes, not even 12!) and the high price tag, as well as Akira not getting the screentime she does in the manga, I’m going to definitely have to say wait for a drop in price point. (Again, Yu Yu Hakusho 20 bucks for 28 episodes. I can get 39 episodes of DBZ for 20 bucks. Sweet Blue Flowers is 38 dollars for 11 episodes.) As an adaptation, Sweet Blue Flowers not only does justice to its source material but at times transcends it to give the fans what they want. But, taken as its own work, taken as a simple 11 episode series, taken as meant for people who are ‘not’ fans or familiar with the source material, I can only assume they would be left with a feeling of “that’s it”? Verdict: Wait for a sale or watch it on Crunchyroll. If you’re truly interested in the story, try the manga instead.

[entergamingxp]

Riot Games’ Project A is called Valorant, and it plays like a Counter-Strike killer • Eurogamer.net

If there can be only one thing taken from my time at Riot Games’ vast, lavishly fitted LA campus, it’s that the mega-developer is desperately keen to prove they know what they’re doing. Riot’s pitch for Valorant, its upcoming tactical shooter seemingly named after a kind of industrial carpet cleaning fluid, is one based almost entirely on competence: the game will have the best infrastructure, the best attention to detail, the most committed, communicative ongoing support, and the most rigorously balanced gameplay of anything like it – even if it comes at the cost, seemingly, of character and heart and anything else like it. I’ve played about four hours and moment-to-moment it really is brilliant, right across the board. Exacting, oddly approachable, tense. The potential is there for Valorant to be the pinnacle of tactical shooters – but it also feels a bit back-to-front. This is a game that exists purely to excel, like the child of two parents who only agreed to conceive so their kid could ace its homework. A game that’s very good at doing what other games have already done, but better.

Valorant

Developer: Riot Games

Publisher: Riot Games

Platform: PC

Availability: Summer 2020

Perhaps that impression is just a result of the way in which Riot has chosen to introduce Valorant. At times it’s felt almost comically self-conscious, the developer obsessively anticipating every gripe and grizzle before it comes about. Recall the initial teaser reveal, amidst Riot’s multitude of ten-year anniversary celebrations, where lead producer Anna Donlon talked at length about “Project A”‘s ambition to eliminate such essential woes as “peeker’s advantage”, and bless the world with 128-tick servers. Sexy! Dedicated servers are old news, it seems. The schtick of schmucks. Such is the world of games, in this time of subreddit megathreads and so many direct lines from community to creator, that one of the largest developers on earth announces a massive new game by correcting their audience’s complaint-jargon before they’ve even used it.

From the moment you equip your knife to move faster, you know Valorant will feel incredibly familiar to Counter-Strike fans.

Still, Valorant is impressive, and as weird as it is to lead with the technical firefighting stuff, so is that. If you buy it, Riot’s promises are hugely encouraging. In opening presentations at the studio, developers cited twelve games as inspiration, ranging from the obvious, like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to Crossfire and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (curiously, and perhaps cheekily: no mention of Overwatch), and the game itself feels like a surgical piecing together of the best of them. Each game’s minor gripe or community grumble extracted and eliminated before it ever came about. To describe it in brief, imagine Counter-Strike in a just slightly more colourful world, with better attention to the little touches, from a nice little ping system to slightly more playfulness in the maps, with things like fixed teleporters allowing for baiting and flanking. Above all though, its standout addition is the highly strategic abilities, each tied to your characters (“Agents”) that sit between the rigid grounding of Rainbow Six Siege’s Operators and the more cartoonish skills of Overwatch.

The abilities themselves are quite Overwatch though, as much as Riot wants to avoid saying the name. The main difference is the intention: with Valorant the aim is to be a “tactical shooter first”, with everything else in service of that. That means all the Agents still deal damage primarily through shooting (disappointingly, with real-world guns, which lead designer Trevor Romleski told me was in order to preserve a sense of inherent, “intuitively satisfying” feel and recognisability), and Agents’ abilities are always in service of that, whether it’s through zoning, or scouting, or debuffing, or just bluntly walling off entrances. Even the Agents that feel especially out-of-this-world or Overwatch-y, such as the Hanzo-like Sova (renamed from Hunter mid-way through my time there), who can fire off a scouting pulse arrow and a larger ultimate that can pass through walls, still rely on gunplay first – and the same guns as everyone else.

Combining abilities ostensibly for one purpose – like that green wall – with position and tactical play like this will be essential for the more advanced players.

Those guns are also at the centre of the in-game “economy”, which is very similar in concept to Counter-Strike again, or indeed the gold-based shopping of League of Legends. Games are played in a first-to-twelve format, which takes a good half an hour, or longer if it’s a close one. Matches are attack versus defence, with one team trying to plant a bomb and the other trying to prevent them. The maps, of which there’ll be four at launch, Riot says, will have a mix of two or three points to attack and defend. You win a round by either killing all five of the enemy team members or successfully planting a bomb and seeing it through to detonation – or defusing it once planted, if you’re on defence. And you play the game in chunks, so you’ll be defending for several rounds then attacking for several and, coming back to the economy, it’s between these individual rounds where you have a chance to buy weapons, armour and – crucially – more charges of your abilities. That economy is intended to be “team-based”, so the better your team does in a round the more money you have to spend before the next one, on those bigger and better guns and the like. In a nice touch that you’d hope would encourage teamwork, you can also ping a weapon from the menu and another teammate can buy it for you with a single click, helping the wealth trickle down from that one ringer on the squad.

As an aside on modes themselves, it’s just this one at launch but Romleski did say the team was “interested in exploring” other, faster or more casual modes, and that the core one’s length may change slightly if the community deems it necessary. Anna Donlon also added it’s “definitely” on the team’s list. “The team has been very focused on the competitive part… The questions we’ve been kind of debating amongst ourselves is: would you hold that back to wait to establish the more casual mode or would you put competitive mode out for the audience we think it’s for, start building that audience and start building a community – and then also at the same time be working on something that could be maybe a little bit more broad reaching or something that you would just want to play to decompress? … Do we wait to launch the game so we have that? I think the answer is probably no. Do we prioritise that work? I think the answer there is probably yes.”

Maps are crisp and readable, but that’s at the expense of them looking a little flat.

Looking for lore

Character and lore might not be the first thing on people’s minds when a hardcore shooter launches, but it’s been a key part of games like Overwatch’s success in particular. So why the silence on that compared to everything else?

Valorant creative director David Nottingham said he’s “a big believer in environmental storytelling”, and so the plan is to introduce it in-game, rather than via the “incredible” CG trailers of games like Overwatch – although they may do something similar “at some point”.

One in-game example: “You’re playing a map and you’re like, “Oh, there’s there’s a billboard up,” it’s maybe a sort of recruitment poster for Kingdom, right? Kingdom is a big faction, a company that exists in this world… and then you come back on a Tuesday and you log in and you’re like “Woah!” – someone’s gone in and defaced it. So for people who are paying attention it’ll be like, “Oh, there’s actually dialogue happening, and things happening within the world that I’m seeing play out in front of me.” And so for those who want to discover that stuff it will deepen their understanding.”

Back to the economy, and successfully gaming it will be what sets the top players apart from the merely skilled. I’d expect deep strategies and metas and all that malarkey to appear pretty fast around what you spend your first bits of cash on and who buys what for the rest of the team. The other side of that, of course, is that I expect the ubiquitous lone wolf players will probably refuse to share. Playing in the cocoon of Riot’s in-house “PC Bang”, on teams of five who speak the same language – and are happy to even use the game’s built-in voice chat in the first place – it would be easy to say that Valorant feels wonderfully tactical, with cooperation and character synergy baked in. The reality is that while, yes, the Agents’ abilities synergise quite beautifully at times, I’m sure that’s also down to having the right people to play with. The ringer on our team was Riot’s David “Phreak” Turley, for instance – a well-known professional League of Legends commentator who mains the support role when he plays. In other words: an unusually supportive, communicative environment off the bat.

Without a squad of chatty friends or some particularly good luck with online matchmaking, it’s very easy to anticipate an issue with toxic communication coming from such an incredibly tense, competitive game with both text and voice chat. As much as it might seem like a laboured point, this is something that many see as inseparable from League of Legends, and that Riot has already had to work enormously hard at combating. It’s arguably failed to really fix the issue, ten years on, and that’s despite League only featuring text chat in-game. Voice chat’s issues, most notably with the exclusionary effect it has on female players in particular, have been well documented. When I asked about this, game director Joe Ziegler promised to draw from Riot’s “centralised efforts” at battling the issue and apply some “specific salves around certain features,” but wouldn’t go into more detail during our chat. You can read more of his thoughts in our full interview with Ziegler and Valorant’s lead producer, Anna Donlon, but a suggestion would be to axe the voice and text chat altogether and go with Apex Legends’ nuanced ping system (something League of Legends itself made good early strides with). It’s also worth noting Riot’s already promised to improve on the pings they have. As Romleski put it, the implementation I saw was “not the grand vision” of the ping system: “we want to make sure players are comfortable if they don’t use voice or they don’t [feel confident in] calling out all the right information at the correct times.” Fingers crossed.

This is one of the zones where you’ll need to plant or defuse a bomb. Riot placed huge emphasis on its work with verticality, sightlines, cover, map-knowledge and more, and they’re all evident here.

Toxicity notwithstanding, Valorant’s intense competitiveness is also one of its greatest strengths. If you do get a good team, or just a good group of pals to play it with, I found there was a remarkable thrill to most of the rounds I played, especially so when we swept ahead to lengthy leads before almost throwing matches at the final round, or clawed matches back from the brink. Games frequently built to a natural climax of tension, and some higher-level plays – last-gasp, “clutch” one-versus-three kills or team-wide strategies coming together – can be incredibly satisfying. The game feels built to surface those particularly vivid, Rainbow Six Siege-style moments in particular, when there’s one player left and somehow they pull it off, turning things around with nothing but spit and hope and a little John McClane gumption.

It’s hard to pin down a single, quantifiable thing that brings that sort of heightened tension about, but Riot would argue it’s all in the basics. To go right back to their initial pitch, this is a game built on competency first, and apparently what that means is a tangible difference to all the little things. The art team emphasised their creation of a “clean zone”, for instance, where anything within the playable height range of the maps was slightly more muted and stripped back, whilst the areas above (roofs, skylines, and the like) was allowed to pop. Other elements are illustrated in accordance with a “readability hierarchy”, where Agents stand out above the playable space, which stands out above the visible parts of your gun, which is above the non-playable stuff altogether. Cover, on the maps themselves, is allocated with great precision, forming a curated spaghetti of “long lanes” of clear sniper paths and intentionally obstructed sightlines. All characters have equal-sized hitboxes. There’s tagging, and specific walls you can shoot through, and on and on and on it goes with a seemingly infinite string of minutiae that Riot has thought about (and talked about) at exhaustive length.

This balcony, and its longer sightlines to and from the room you’re trying to attack ahead, is a key spot for snipers.

Above all of that, though, is a technical effort that on paper sounds quite remarkable. As we all know by now, Riot boldly claims to have eliminated peekers’ advantage, something that I’d expect no-one but the most ardent of CS:GO nerds to have heard of or cared about until now, but makes a demonstrable difference to how long-term players will play the game. In most shooters like Valorant, you can briefly pop out from behind a wall to “peek” at what’s going on and quickly dart back with the shimmy of a button, and do so with no risk of getting picked off, because the delay between you performing the peek and the enemy seeing you is too high. You’re back behind the wall before it’s humanly possible to react and shoot. It’s become a time-old part of playing tactical shooters at a decent level, but in Valorant it no longer flies. Riot seems to have tackled this entirely by cracking open one of those League of Legends coffers, that I imagine they have lying around the place, and simply throwing vast amounts of money at the problem.

To get briefly technical, as I understand it Riot claims to have struck a deal with internet service providers that will route internet traffic directly from you to Riot’s servers, via service called Riot Direct, which it says means an average of 35ms ping for at least 70 percent of players at launch. I can feel the eyes glazing over, don’t worry, so in basic terms: much less lag, regardless of where you are. At the top end of the scale, competitive players and streamers that have been known to move across the continent of North America to get physically closer to servers, so that their ping is low enough for high-level play, can breathe a sigh of relief. For myself and most others, it’s just another quiet reassurance.

As well as the peeker-busting 128-tick servers and promise of super-stable ping for (almost) everyone, Riot’s also built Valorant to be playable on a huge amount of machines. David Strailey, who works at Riot in the netcode and software engineering side of things for Valorant, said that a $120, ten-year-old laptop with an i3-370M CPU (which equates to 88 percent of current League of Legends players) would be able to play Valorant at 30 frames-per-second, while 66 percent of LoL players could play it at 60. Slides were used to show off some apparently remarkable strides to improving the accuracy of hit registration. Riot even showed footage supporting a promise to upscale players with low FPS and lag, through some special server magic, so that even if they jittered about and jumped all over the place on their own screen their movement would appear entirely smooth on yours.

Wind all that back into the important stuff – the gameplay – and it raises interesting questions around where true originality and fun really comes from. Sometimes players coming up with clever ways to work around things that are technically problems or imbalances can actually lead to the most interesting gameplay. To go back to peekers once again, in Romleski’s words: “Let’s say we’re playing against somebody who’s peeking, you might ‘jiggle peek’ yourself as like a counter-way to deal with it, and I think it’s good that players are being ingenuitive and trying to come up with ways to deal with it.” The difference in Valorant, he says, is that Riot wants to build the “tools” for breaking sightlines and using space to your advantage into the game intentionally, so you can “find your own way to break that puzzle of some people holding that position,” rather than relying on server delay to do it for them.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/riot-games-project-a-is-called-valorant-and-it-plays-like-a-counter-strike-killer-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=riot-games-project-a-is-called-valorant-and-it-plays-like-a-counter-strike-killer-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[bountyofbeads]

The politics of the Joker, explained

BY MATT ROSZA | Published October 8, 2019 7:15 PM ET | Salon | Posted October 8, 2019 7:18 PM ET |

Politics is inextricably linked with popular culture, and few characters are as fraught with political meaning as those who have appeared in America’s recent Batman films.

As comic book fans flock to cinema to see “Joker,” the new Todd Phillips film about the iconic clown prince of crime starring Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, let’s take a closer look at cinematic depictions of the title character:

The shooting at a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in 2012 actually had nothing to do with the Joker.

This touches on a particularly sinister urban legend. After mass shooter James Holmes murdered 12 people and wounded 70 others at the Century 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado, many media outlets erroneously reported that he had dyed his hair orange and referred to himself as “the Joker” after being arrested. Although Holmes did dye his hair, George Brauchler, the 18th judicial district attorney and prosecutor of the case, said the fact that a Batman film had been playing at the cinema where the shooting transpired was incidental.

“If it had been ‘The Avengers,’ he would have been there. If it were ‘Jurassic World,’ he would have been there,”Brauchler said. “It had nothing to do that we can find with Batman.”

Despite the fact that the Joker had nothing to do with the shooting, the cinema announced that it would not screen the new film out of respect for the victims and their families.

“The Dark Knight” was widely perceived as having a neoconservative bias, with Batman representing the security position of President George W. Bush and the Joker standing for the abstract concepts of terrorism, chaos and anarchy.

When the film was first released in 2008, the last year of the Bushera, Andrew Klavan of the New York Times wrote that the year’s biggest blockbuster was “at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.”

This interpretation has been supported by other pundits, including Josh Xiong of the Encyclopedia Britannica blog and Leon Thomas of Renegade Cut, who captured the same points even if they did not necessarily share Klavan’s assent. After all, this is a film in which the hero tortures people, violates national and international law and engages in mass spying in order to stop a villain who just wants to watch the world burn. While the Joker is certainly not a theocrat in the vein of Islamist terrorists, his anarchic philosophy is accurately summed up in his famous monologue to District Attorney Harvey Dent:

“You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan.’ Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all ‘part of the plan.’ But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!”

The image of the Joker was used to ridicule Barack Obama in one of the most famous examples of right-wing street art during his presidency.

The image shows Obama’s face with photoshopped make-up made to look like that worn by the character of the Joker in “The Dark Knight.” The word “socialism” appears underneath the banner, thereby conflating the Joker’s malevolent agenda with an ideology which conservatives wrongly ascribed to the Obama administration. (Obama was, in fact, center-left). Yet the poster grated not merely because it tastelessly compared a progressive politician with a comic book villain but also because it did so by lightening the skin of America’s first African-American president.

As Ben Walters wrote in the Guardian in 2009, “The simple fact of publishing an image of a black president with his face covered in white greasepaint but for the eyes and a red slash of a mouth can’t help but evoke a minstrel aesthetic, even if it’s in reverse.”

When the image was used to promote a strip club in Virginia, the NAACP turned out and protested it as being racist.

The Joker isn’t the only famous Batman villain who has been appropriated to advance a right-wing agenda.

The character of Bane from “The Dark Knight Rises” has become something of an icon among the alt-right, who embrace his anti-elitist message as a reflection of their own values and has been referenced in hate speech in response to Black Lives Matter protesters and across the most vile, trolling corners of the Internet. (Full disclosure: One of America’s most prominent neo-Nazis, Andrew Anglin, wrote an anti-Semitic hit piece about this journalist while quoting the character.) When Trump used music from “The Dark Knight Rises” in one of his re-election commercials, it was recognized as a dogwhistle and removed after Warner Bros. raised its hand in protest.

This brings us to the controversy with the new “Joker” movie, which some critics feel will inspire the same right-wingers who gravitated toward the Joker from “The Dark Knight” and Bane from “The Dark Knight Rises.”

“Joker” tells the story of Arthur Fleck, a rent-a-clown with severe mental health issues who is repeatedly mistreated by society and eventually becomes violent. The concern seems to be that, while Fleck’s story is not a direct parallel to those of the types of right-wingers who become violent, there are enough similarities that the film could inspire future acts of violence.

“In America, there is a mass shooting or attempted act of violence by a guy like Arthur practically every other week,”  Stephanie Zacharek wrote in “Time Magazine.” “And yet we’re supposed to feel some sympathy for Arthur, the troubled lamb; he just hasn’t had enough love.”

Zacharek’s views were echoed by David Ehrlich in IndieWire, who described the film as “a toxic rallying cry for self-pitying incels, and a hyper-familiar origin story so indebted to ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The King of Comedy’ that Martin Scorsese probably deserves an executive producer credit.”