#bad faith criticism

[sapphiresaphics]

Yeah… sure… they show flashbacks of Viktor being shy about his leg, but sure… “it was never shown that Viktor saw it as a weakness.”

Viktor spends 3 episodes in season 1 crafting/obsessing over the hextech to fix his leg but sure… “it was never shown that Viktor saw it as a weakness.”

The show explicitly shows a powerfully moving moment when Viktor can finally walk/run without his cane and he’s so overcome with emotion that he obsesses over what else he can fix with hextech but sure… “it was never shown that Viktor saw it as a weakness.”

Season 1: parallels are just nice addition to the story, making it deeper if you notice them

Season 2: parallels explain the plot, characters' actions and motivations

I have huge problem with Jayce being stuck in that chasm in alt_timeline as a parallel to Viktor's life (beside the fact that Viktor just watched him suffer when he could easily help him but not the point). This parallel just doesn't work for me because writers fucked it up.

First, i must say that parallel itself is not entirely correct.

Jayce breaks his leg on accident while Viktor was disabled because of gasses where he grew up. Personal mistake vs something beyond your control.

Jayce crawls his way up to survive in the wild while Viktor was fighting his way up among people. Fight against nature vs fight against society.

These little nuances wouldn't even matter if the show wasn't trying to convince you that Jayce understood Viktor and his motives after this expirience.

Because he didn't.

More precisely, writers didn't.

They wrote "you've always wanted to cure what you thought were weaknesses" speaking about Viktor's leg and desease and this line ruins everything because it's simply not true.

It was never shown that Viktor saw it as weaknesses. He just wanted to save himself from dying.

So the parallel doesn't work for me because in the end it just looks like Jayce judged wrong (even though the show sets it up like he was right)

[sapphiresaphics]

I am SO FUCKING SICK of this being used as an excuse. There’s this NASTY pervasive policing in media by some “fans” who believe that you can’t like or enjoy a character unless they’re completely morally PURE. They believe that any negative thing a character does MUST be met with equal retribution and/or punishment, or else that means the media in question is CONDONING or SUPPORTING the actions of said character.

Caitlyn, along with every other character in Arcane, is a morally grey character. Meaning they do good things and they do bad things and you’re supposed to have the capacity not to forgive the bad but to be able to understand the reasons behind their actions and see things from a perspective that is not purely black and white. Understanding Caitlyn’s actions doesn’t mean you condone/forgive them, but it also doesn’t mean you condemn her for them either.

Caitlyn does some bad things in her position of power, but she’s not a fascist. Fascism is a far right-wing authoritarian belief. But Caitlyn never show signs of being right-wing. She doesn’t believe in the ideology of fascism and she actively works against the system she’s been put in charge of when she can. She doesn’t use the deep dark prisons in Stillwater where Vi was held, she refuses to lock people up without cause, and she has no interest in amassing power. She has one goal: Get Jinx. That’s it. And she uses the power that was GIVEN TO HER BY THE GOVERNMENT to try and enact that goal. And importantly when that goal is met/exhausted, she RETURNS POWER BACK TO THE GOVERNMENT. Which is what a military leader IS SUPPOSED TO DO under Martial Law.

But these moral police “fans” just see that she did bad things and therefore she is bad too. Simple as that. And anyone who tries to bring CONTEXT and NUANCE into a show that heavily relies on CONTEXT and NUANCE gets blamed for approving of “war crimes” and defending “classism.” And no… that’s not how media literacy WORKS you pompous asshole!

It’s extraordinarily frustrating that fascism as a term has no clear definition, because that allows these moral police assholes to label anything they don’t like under the fascism umbrella. It makes trying to discuss Caitlyn and her arc really difficult because they just shut down all discussion with “she committed war crimes” and they never even bother to try and look into the story beyond that extremely surface level reading.

[wolf-tail]

Steven Universe has received so much bad faith criticism from media illiterate clowns who called it's queer Jewish creator a Nazi sympathizer for *checks notes* acknowledging that Hey, Killing People Is Wrong Perhaps and Punishment Is Not Equivalent To Justice, Maybe in a CHILDREN'S SHOW that I get automatically suspicious of people who vocally dislike it. Like, you don't have to like it, everyone has their reasons, but I worry sometimes what those reasons are

[hyperlexichypatia]

Not pictured: Orange, upon being challenged for this deeply unserious take, pretends they are saying the same thing as Purple.

"No, actually, it is not inherently 'fascist' to believe in a human soul" is not the kind of thing I thought I would need to argue, and yet.

[sapphiresaphics]

You guys REALLY can’t handle any lesbian being messy at all, can you? You guys are such performative morality police it’s disgusting. It’s SO WEIRD how laser focus you guys are on Caitlyn’s morals. Like the idea of a rebound is SO offensive to you, you have to dissect it and blame Caitlyn for all sort of reasons to justify your cognitive dissonance.

I can’t stand this purity dick measuring posturing you idiots have.

The only reason they made Maddie a Noxian spy is because otherwise, she would've been a victim in this entire situation, and people would see how shitty Caitlyn's actions actually are.

Cait is still Maddie's superior. The power imbalance is very much there, not to mention the way she treats Maddie outside of their affair. Imagine if instead of being a 'traitor that weasled herself into Caitlyn's bed to gain her trust', Maddie was just an innocent young officer who was manipulated and used by her boss. It just makes Caitlyn look way worse, which she is, because she didn't know Maddie was a spy, so in her eyes, the difference in status didn't matter.

The writers needed somone else to be the scapegoat while Cailtyn did her thing and everyone was already against Maddie because she 'got in the way of Caitvi', which is not true by the way, Caitvi was always going to be cannon. Personally, I think it's ridiculous, but I've seen it happen time and time again in fandoms, so I'm honesty not surprised.

[spiderandmosquito]

Can drama affect critisism (RWBY)

[coldgoldlazarus]

One of the arguments about any sort of long-running media franchises/series, that almost always instantly raises my guard and calls into suspicion anything else the person making that argument has to say, is "the older stuff was better and everything after X point has been worthless dogshit with no redeeming value."

It's not like this is an alien perspective to me, either. I've been there, I get it. Where My Little Pony is concerned, I think I will always be at least a little bit of a seasonwunner, despite my best efforts. But this is a mindset that must be actively fought back against, and even if I can't really bring myself to watch the last few seasons, I recognize it's not that the show got worse, it just had different priorities there than what appealed to me about it originally.

And sure, sometimes stuff does just objectively shit the bed after a certain point. But honestly, I think that happens most when a series stops trying to explore new ideas, and falls back on shallow pandering fanservice about the earlier beloved entries. Looking at you, Rise Of Skywalker.

So point is, I do get where the mindset comes from, but it's still an extremely toxic impulse that I think needs to be confronted and dismantled with maturity and perspective. And talking with people who have failed to do that, and don't seem remotely interested in trying, is my personal hell.

But probably the most baffling instances of this mindset are when someone is like "everything before this point was good and everything after this point is bad!!!" but the actual argument makes no sense. Everything you say you hate didn't start after this arbitrary point, it started with the ones you uphold as the best in the series. If instance Y and Z are apparently utterly dogshit writing, why are you giving it a pass with instances W and X? It isn't even the repetition or differences in execution that seems to be the problem, it's just that it was good because it was before this arbitrary cutoff point, but bad because it was after it! (One especially galling example of this hypocricy was where the cutoff point between the 'last good' entry and 'first bad' one was between two releases... that came out simultaneously. Make it make sense.) Or else just pretending that this thing you dislike started later than it did and outright ignoring its presence in those earlier entries.

Like yeah, you are entitled to your feelings, at the end of the day; like I said, I get it to some extent at least. But if you're going to try to argue your feelings as some sort of objective fact about the quality of the series, at least put together a coherent and internally consistent argument. Or else, really reexamine if the reasons you're giving are the actual reasons, and it's not just nostalgia talking. Maybe the older entries don't hold up to your particular sensibilities as much as you think. Or maybe, you're refusing to give the newer ones a fair shake and reading them in bad faith.

[justplainsimon]

Apparently the person who made "steven universe is terrible and heres why" Also did a video about dungeon meshi... and yeah, they hate it/don't get it too

(and boy howdy were her thoughts on laios sure ableist)

and because there were so many dislikes, she took the thing down

[sjbattleangel]

Edited from Hiding In Private's fantastic video which you can watch here.

Hiding In Public: "It's unreasonable to attack Rebecca's character as if the most malicious interpretation of everything in the show was their personal idea. The writing and storyboarding team of Steven Universe is one of the most diverse in cartoon history. On a show that pushed diversity and inclusion, a lot of this criticism starts to stink of right-wing co-opting of progressive language, without understanding context and sentiment, in order to have a "gotcha" moment. Considering a lot of videos pushing this also include racist and homophobic jokes (as I've covered in my own series).  Even then, the argument that you're trying to make is that there was a malicious characterization of minorities made by those same minorities...so the next question I guess is: Why Steven Universe? A show about pushing diversity, inclusion and acceptance was being specifically targeted by countless takedown videos (and posts) on this specific thing. It seems to me-at least-that even if someone were to concede all the bad things being said, that it would make more sense to target-more loudly-the shows (and other media) that do the same thing more often with less tact and who are also not led by minority communities rather than one of the only shows intentionally trying to support these communities. Especially when most the people making the criticism, show by virtue of their own comments, are neither coming from these communities or are at worst actively vilifying them with homophobic and racist comments. Say there are two shops: One that sells apples and the other that sells grapes. The apple owner overhears a customer complaining about the grapes not tasting good. Does the Apple owner then run a campaign pretending to be a grape fan in order to make grapes better? Or is it more likely that they stoked a flame to ensure that their business had less competition?"

[edwardshundredyearoldspunk]

"I watched x so you don't have to" "I listened to y so you don't have to" "I read z so you don't have to" I cannot tell you enough how you also didn't have to. you didn't have to do that babe. you could have just not done that and spared the internet of yet another bad faith criticism of a piece of media that wasn't made for you

[sapphiresaphics]

YES. SHE DOES REMEMBER THAT. That’s WHY she says that! She’s spent the greater part of the past season DEALING with her tricks and gadgets. Did you forget that Jinx set TRAPS for them? Constantly?

"You wouldn't last one second without your ugly gadgets and chicken shit tricks."

And now I'm convinced the s2 writers didn't even watch the first episode of their own show...

That, or Vi somehow got her amnesia from her LoL lore off-screen.

[kellodrawsalot]

I'm curious. A mutual of mine had a bad altercation with a user named Aquíllis. I digged and found out this person has a history of being toxic, and found a comment from your part commenting on her behavior. Did you know this person?

Sorry for the late reply because I first had no idea who you meant.

I remember now, it was some time ago. I think it was on my blog where I posted how I couldn't find good Sonic idw critical post because it was full of bad faith criticism. I mention no usernames, no vague posting but this person got offended by it and acted as if I made that post directed towards them, which is honestly telling on their part. They also tagged someone else who had nothing to do with it and they just ignored it. (lol) Your friend should just block them and not interact.

[iamafanofcartoons]

Vexed Viewer just hit a new low. He made a video insulting Kiersi Burkhart (one of RWBY’s writers) for saying in a twitter AMA that Cinder experienced (clearly negative, as per her own admission of “for better or for worse”) growth and change as a character. In addition to making a mean-spirited gotcha towards her, he didn’t ask her for permission to share her twitter information in the video. You can get sued for that. I really hope someone tells her about this, and that she decides to press charges on that asshole, or at the very least report his twitter account and/or YouTube channel.

Do people STILL think Vexed Viewer is not a misogynist?

Over 50% of his channel is dedicated to insulting women.

His most popular videos and tweets are about hating fictional women.

And he's transphobic.

Then again? He IS a hardcore blacksun shipper and adam taurus lover, so it makes sense that misogynistic men and women love him.

In the meantime, use this.

It will allow you to block his channel, and give yourself peace of mind.

[sapphiresaphics]

The council decides to invade all of Zaun to get Jinx.

Caitlyn: “innocent people will get caught in the crossfire!”

The council doesn’t care. They’re planning to invade anyway.

Then the attack on the memorial happens.

Caitlyn: “We aren’t prepared for a full scale attack, the attack on the memorial proved that. So I’m planning to lead a small elite strike force into Zaun with 3 objectives. Dismantle shimmer. Arrest anyone associated with Silco. And get Jinx.”

Caitlyn looks into her Kiramman archive to figure out a way to do this without hurting a large number of people. Discovers the Grey vent system and puts into motion a plan to use the Grey to clear the streets using it like tear gas and attacking only facilities associated with Silco and his fellow Chem-baron goons as a way to prevent unwanted civilian casualties.

The show literally shows Caitlyn and her team using the vents themselves to enter and exit areas and attacking ONLY the chem Barrons and their goons.

Fandom: “OH MUY GAWD! CAITLYN IS LITERALLY HITLER GASSING THE ENTIRE CITY IF ZAUN! THE GAS IS CANCEROUS AND KILLS ON IMPACT! SHE’S SUCH A HORRIBLE PERSON! SO MANY INNOCENT CIVILIAN LIVES LOST! I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE HURT INNOCENT CIVLIANS! DRUG LORDS ARE STILL CITIZENS AND DESERVE HUMAN RIGHTS! ACAB! ZAUN IS A GAZA PARALLEL! DICTATOR! DICTATOR! DICTATOR! KKKIRAMMAN”

Me: Jesus fucking Christ almighty….im so fucking tired…

[sapphiresaphics]

They really are not. We actually don’t get to see much of who Jinx BECOMES as a result of the end of season 1. Prior to the ending Jinx was behaving irrationally/erratically because she had internal conflict of who she should be: Jinx or Powder.

That conflict was resolved wirhin the last 2 mins of the last episode of season 2. So outside her being sad that Vi has changed and firing off the rocket… we don’t actually SEE what her new personality IS until Season 2 starts.

That “I’m a hero” line is her BRAGGING to Vi. Rubbing her perceived accomplishments in her washed up sister’s face. And she doesn’t even believe it either, OTHER people believe it. She’s a hero to OTHER people, not herself.

They didn’t absolve her of her crimes? The show REPEATEDLY tells us “no amount of good deeds can resolve our crimes.” How did you MISS this?

Quick thought :

I do not understand the writers' refusal to commit to what Jinx had become at the end of S1. S1 and S2 Jinx are two completely different characters, and it is incredibly jarring (still not over that "I'm a hero!" line, considering that Jinx never commited any heroic action in s1 or s2, on the contrary).

It may seem strange, but it really feels that S2 writers felt like "good character = moraly good character", and therefore retconed everything and twisted the plot to give a redemption arc/excuses to every character they wished to be popular. This might explain what they did to Caitlyn, or Jayce, or the rest of the cast. In Jinx's case, they completely absolved her of all her s1 crimes… even though said crimes served to make her character interesting.

[spacefrog1984]

This is it, this is the post that just got me blocked again by @curly-b-blog - for someone trying to be so flippant with their criticism of @celestialalpacaron and @saiscribbles, Curly really can't take a joke, can she?