#bc i didn't want it warping my perception of the actual characters

[super-paper]

You know,, at first i didn't realize because the leaks are low quality and i couldnt really understand what happened with kurugiri and where bkg showed up from.. but after you pointed it out and the more i think about it, the more im mad how izuku and bakugo just fucking killed kurugiri. Like, what the fuck was that???? Even if one tries to defend it as 'oh he's on the villains side and maybe they though he was going to warp shigafo somewhere or protect him' it's still mind-boggling how izuku didn't hesitate at all. Like you said, that was one of the few characters that wanted to protect and save tomura, who was pleading for afo to give him back and they just........ignore that and punch him as well. No surprised look, no hesitation, no thinking on what to do. Then add izukus lack of reaction to tomura decaying and i question who is that, bc sure as fuck isn't the "i want to save that crying little boy" hero deku. Doing that in front of aizawa and yamada as well is so foul damn. I haven't been this disappointed in izuku since 327 (my beloathed) and his overall response in that "reunion" with toshinori.

It's implied Kurogiri was already dying (which is, it's own can of worms,, because there's really no way to spin that particular writing decision in a way that makes Hori look good considering how it was never once foreshadowed that Giri overusing his quirk would kill him). But yeah, Giri's treatment is definitely one of the most upsetting aspects of this chapter-- Izuku and Bkgo may not have killed him per se, but they also didn't hesitate to run him through just to finish off AFO. Izuku exhibits zero reaction to Giri begging for Tomura's life and makes no attempts to even speak with him. Like, Giri is honestly the only character in this chapter who actually felt heroic in what was supposed to be the grand finale of Izuku's journey to become one of the greatest heroes. It's an absolutely massive writing fumble.

Like, if we're looking at the arc as a whole, the intended read is like.... Tenko tells Izuku that he's a villain who is fighting to be a hero to the villains, and the unspoken implication is that Izuku immediately gives up on saving him because "Tenko can't be stopped/changed and made his choice to keep fighting for evil"-- even though we literally get a reveal in the very next chapter that he was manipulated into this position and forcibly given the power that helped shaped his entire life/worldview. Izuku does not react once to this reveal despite the manga making it clear that he is also seeing AFO's memories. Tenko isn't allowed to properly process this reveal and the implications behind it + how it skewed his perception of himself. The heroes arrive and yap about how "tragedy is bad and shouldn't happen :(" while making no attempt to actually engage with the fact that AFO is openly grieving, and then they proceed to annihilate the body of the biggest victim in the series without any hesitation (while also running through the crumbling body of another victim who is the only one on the battlefield that's attempting to save the first victim's life).

Like. Am I misunderstanding anything or.

[fromtheseventhhell]

did people actually hate sahnsa or they just didn’t like her as much as arya and her stans and s*phiet took that personally?! her character is the worst written character in the show is unbelievable. a recycled cersei 2.0 and it’s all her and her ego’s fault. give dumb people some attention and they will never stop being annoying . i don’t know how but the writers were the whitest most cliched writers ever. they saw that cersei and sahnsa are dumb and get called dumb by everyone and said: yea that’s realism, that’s complex, guys they wear dresses and work through the system, they are politicians and no one hears them GUYS COMPLEXITY. meanwhile dany and arya just bc they are smart and bold and angry and do more then cersei or sahnsa ever did for ANYONE in their privileged lives in the books, were reduced to girl bosses of the show, one died bc no one loved her in contrast to amaZIng qitn, and the other didn’t care abt anything, not even being a hero who saved humanity, the connection to jon that they have in the books, pure and full of love, nonexistent obviously, and fucked away to god knows where. these two are the main female characters, the pillars on whom this story even had the grounds on when grrm started writing ?!?! how did they do this to these two??? I am glad dany stans took the show down. DESERVED. I don’t want Arya’s actress near the jonsnowshow, let them have their weird j*nsa show together with kit. s*phiet already trashed on arya and maisie..let s*phie and kit have their porn together they are so weird fr with each other. I can’t take anything seriously past s4. putting sahnsa on the center was thedowngrade. and I am glad the fans dragged it to filth. and they should drag it to filth till the books are out and u all get proved wrong. can’t believe they did this to emilia too!! arya and dany deserved better

What's funny is, that's exactly it. It's not that Sansa receives some super special, "feminine" only hatred from fandom it's just that she's not as popular as her stans (and Sophie) wanted her to be. The show did a lot to boost her importance and popularity BUT that also happened around the same time to quality of the writing started to go down. D&D were making changes as early as the first season of course, but when they decided to give Jeyne's plotline to Sansa they were officially done with adapting the books. And you know what? People noticed. They were, rightfully, calling out the poor writing of the entire show but Stansas (and Sophie 💀) took it personally because they liked the importance she was being handed. It wasn't even the writing itself that they liked because despite the increased emphasis on her character, she wasn't actually doing much in the later seasons. Along with that there were plenty of reasons to dislike how she was written. And it still didn't give her the popularity people wanted. Daenerys and Arya were, and are, still fan favorites despite how much they were flattened and warped. Stansa's just thought that she was so great that everyone would start hating Dany and Arya and fawn over their fave instead.

As for the actors, my sympathy's solely lie with Emilia. She was the one who cared the most about her character and having her accurately adapted from the books but the writer's went out of their way to destroy Dany. One of the reasons I want the books to be finished, besides the obvious, is because I want her to experience Dany getting the writing she deserves in some form at least. Arya's character was done dirty but at the time Maisie was fully on board with it (though to her credit she has since admitted that the ending was bad). You can tell Sophie was very invested in Sansa's perception (she was very much projecting on her and liked the favoritism), and she's probably the only cast member actually happy about the show ending. Kit's feelings towards the ending feel artificial and more rooted in him wanting to get his spin-off off the ground.

Tbh I do think that Sophie coming back for the spin-off is more unlikely then Maisie, just from the fact that Kit doesn't personally like Sanas's character which is pretty funny. If there's one thing we don't have to worry about it's Jonsa happening with him being involved in the writing. Not even having George on board would make me interested in whatever story they have to tell though because it has to follow that horrible show. I do love that D&D shot themselves in the foot with their writing; they got fired from the project they rushed to finish GOT for and the show is universally considered one of the worst series finales of all time 😂

[thekimspoblog]

I mean the fact that Vacuum Repair Guy wasn't involved in Kim's disappearance was a bit disappointing; that's at least partially what I'm getting at. That the two of them got embroiled in something so dangerous and yet when she up and left her witness-protection act was so shoddy. We seem to at least be in agreement that the ending was kind of rushed and weird, and that's leading to a lot of confusion about what the show was even trying to say.

I guess I'd need an example of one other time Jimmy's hurt feelings took precedent over letting Kim do whatever she wanted. Because I'd need both hands to count the times she did something which wounded his pride, and even if he complained he quickly chose to stuff it down and smile. That's not healthy either, but it shows how much of an exception for her he makes with his pettiness.

I get what you're saying, that Jimmy also avoids facing his problems. And you need to understand that even if I'm trying to paint Jimmy as a white knight, that's not a good thing. I just think that if we're talking about things Saul tells himself to be able to sleep at night, "Everyone already thinks the worst of me so why not prove them right" is only half the equation and "Everyone else hates me but they're all hypocrites and they're wrong about me because actually I'm a hopeless romantic and I'm doing the mature thing by handling the dirty work" is the other half. That's what was comfortable. But I reiterate: "dealing with his problems" in this context would have meant unburdening himself of this terrible secret of what happened to his colleague and rejoining the "right" side of the legal field by cooperating with Eriksen. And even in a parallel universe where he wanted to do that, he couldn't have. So this secret had to just sort of weigh on his mind and continue to warp his perception of morality.

A lot of this comes down to the fact that ironically we still never SAW an average day in the law offices of Saul Goodman. In BCS we get to see this devastating chain of events that lead up to him launching his practice, and in BrBa, we saw him interact with ONE client who was such a pain in the ass to work for that it eventually torpedoed his career. But we still aren't given key details like... what percentage of his clients were cartel and who were just regular poor people, whether Jimmy breaking the law to serve the interests of his clients was a regular thing, how often Mike offered him "jobs" and what kind, whether Jimmy ever rejected those job offers, or what his relationship to Gus was leading up to him recommending him to Walter.

No matter what the answers are to the above, most of this was probably of his own volition. But I just think it's silly to put Jimmy's time as Saul into either extreme of free will. He wasn't some helpless woobie who only did bad because the mean Mexicans made him do it. But I also think it undercuts the impact of the story to say that we watched this man spend six seasons building a cage for himself, and then conclude that the door was wide open and he could have left at any time. Yes, Jimmy had choices, he had lots of choices, he made bad choices, and so I think it makes sense to say that those bad choices trapped him. I'm pretty sure once you become a cartel lawyer, you can't just say "wait never mind". To say he wasn't reluctant about all of this ignores most of the scenes in the story. And if the events of BCS didn't culminate in him being more likely to be drafted into further cartel activity than any other upstanding lawyer in the city, then why did this character even need an origin story? If all this bullshit didn't serve to fuel a narrative where by the time Saul met Walt, he already felt like he had made too many mistakes and was past the point of no return, then we're back to Square 1 where Walt recruited some random ambulance-chaser, and he agreed because greed. I am distorting things a little; I admit that, but my point is that if you don't do that, then there's still a massive disconnect between BCS and BrBa. If Jimmy didn't feel the least bit trapped in his life as a criminal lawyer, then BCS only "explains" Saul Goodman in that it vaguely gestures at why he's such a glib asshole. All the talk of stupid mistakes escalating to dire consequences, all the talk of not realizing you're in over your head until it's too late, all the scenes of Jimmy sweating bullets, kneeling in the dirt, begging for his life and insisting he didn't think it would turn out this way, served no thematic purpose in the long term. And that would be dumb.

Also even if "duress" and "having no choice" are the same as far as the courts are concerned, as an omniscient audience casting judgement on JMM's soul, we can make a distinction. If someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to get in the car, it's still a choice to get in. Even if my little fill-in fic were true, that wouldn't mean Jimmy was a good person. Working in an industry that kills hundreds to protect the life of one woman (who is frankly kind of an asshole) would just be a different flavor of immoral. And it's a more interesting flavor than him just being heart-broken and cynical. Just because I think Jimmy would absolutely jump at the opportunity for some grand romantic gesture like turning himself in to clear Kim's name (because he's literally done this repeatedly before), and he looks down on Walt for not doing likewise, doesn't mean Jimmy can't be a selfish bastard in every other capacity. His "whatever makes Kim happy makes me happy" mantra IS selfish; it's selfishness by proxy. Even confessing at the end of Saul Gone was (as Mr. Acker put it) "saying whatever it takes to get what you want".

BCS ret-conned Saul's character into a man who would do anything for love, even if that thing was objectively evil. A foil to Walt where even if doing crimes actually did benefit his family, it still wouldn't justify screwing everyone else over. But even before that, you watch BrBa carefully and you can get the weird vibe that Saul cares more about Skyler than Walt did. But yeah, also sometimes lawyers can advise on the best course of action and still not take it themselves. Because again, in the bunker scene, when Saul talks about "facing the music" he's not really talking about the noble act of taking responsibility; he's talking about an act of damage control which would be too little too late, and Walt wasn't even willing to do that.

i forgot how cuckoo bananas crazy it is for Saul to give his “stay and face the music” speech to Walt in the basement of the vacuum place

[grewlikefancyflowers]

novel lwj has 'sparse characterisation'.. let's give him deep and interesting traits such as liking gardening and aquariums 🥴

[nightcrawlerzincorporated]

Yo sorry to bother you about this but I’m genuinely kind of annoyed right now. I know "Rob can't act" is like a joke among the fandom but it actually kind of harmed my experience of watching Sunny. Maybe it's my fault for listening to random people's opinions but when I first joined Sunnyblr a year ago a lot of bigger blogs were really fond of pushing that narrative (I think bc a lot of people just really don't like him). It's just disappointing to see how the access point into this space includes a lot of people telling you that Rob can't act and you're an idiot if you like him or his work and it completely warped my perception of Sunny as a show and Mac as a character. I learned not to trust Rob and his choices when playing Mac and now I am very pissed off that I spent all that time not taking him as seriously. I think I've managed to filter out the unnecessary Rob hatred because I haven't seen it in a while but I didn't realize how ingrained it was in my head until the Liberty Bell podcast episode when they were talking about Rob's incredible performance, and then I watched Mythic Quest and that show changed my entire life. I don't mean to make a whole big deal out of what is mostly a joke in the fandom but like...it heavily affected my very first watch of Sunny and I am. so irritated

I actually have so many thoughts about this.

So the way I see it, a combination of several things happened all in conjunction with each other: Rob always calls himself the worst actor of the three, which to me just reads as him being insecure, but him saying that makes the idea stick in people's heads and makes them look for reasons he's a bad actor. Our brains are giant pattern machines, so when the brain gets new information like "I'm the worst actor" it looks for ways to process the new information, which means your brain is going, "hey, be on the look out for this guy being a bad actor" in a way it isn't doing for the other actors. I mean maybe this is definitely projecting, but it reminds me of when I first started writing "professionally" (I freelance) and I would worry that my work wasn't good, so I would tell clients "I know it's not that good", "I know someone else could've done better", "I know this part doesn't make sense", etc and it would just make them have no confidence in me and so they would agree and complain about my writing! But then my therapist told me to stop doing that, that it's not actually more honest or more humble or whatever to self-deprecate, and once I stopped saying that stuff I got way more compliments and way fewer complaints AND way more recommendations and way more clients as a result. Things I thought were "obvious flaws" it turns out people only noticed when I pointed to it and said "this is a flaw!". So I think there's some of that happening.

Another factor is that a lot of people didn't like how Mac was written in season 13. But instead of saying, "the writing team collectively decided to write Mac in a way we don't like this season", a lot of people placed the sole blame on Rob as the actor who portrays him. And I think part of that is that a lot of people were waiting a long time for Mac to come out (I wasn't a part of the tumblr fandom back then but I was a fan of the show and I. For real thought he was just never gonna come out lol I remember Glenn specifically really wanted Mac to stay in the closet because he thought it was funnier so I was like ok. Guess this character is just in the closet forever. Hero or Hate Crime? I remember watching as it aired and genuinely being so shocked Mac didn't go back in the closet at the end, especially after Goes to Hell which I also watched live and was convinced was the ultimate proof it was never gonna happen lol) and so they had a lot of expectations of how Mac would or wouldn't change after coming out because there had been so many years of build up and will-he-wont-he about the whole thing. Hell, I wasn’t really in the fandom like I said but I’m sure just like today there were people who specifically started watching after season 12 because they heard there was an out gay character. And then season 13 aired and every single character (probably because of the changes to long term writing staff) felt kind of… off. That’s the main criticism of season 13 I hear to this day, that all the characters feel wrong in it or feel like they just exist to parrot various political movements first and be character’s second. That’s not a Mac exclusive problem. BUT because Mac had the most obvious and easy to understand change (being openly gay) a lot of people latched onto that as “what made the season bad”, and latched onto Rob for “ruining the character”. Yes, both the people who complained he was “too gay” AND the people who complained he “wasn’t gay enough” did this. Suddenly, it wasn’t about the seasons’ overall writing, it was about the fact that Rob, a straight man, was doing a bad job playing a gay man. Which made it even easier for people on tumblr to justify complaining about his acting.

And that led to people going back through the seasons and criticizing his acting in other episodes too (like I talked about above, it’s that confirmation bias. Going into something actively looking for ways it’s bad makes it way easier to be overly critical). Which led to this narrative of, “Rob is and always has been a bad actor”.

Now, some of you may be screaming at your screens, “nightcrawlerzincorporated, are you seriously gonna sit here and act like the only reason people dislike Rob is season 13 and his own self-deprecation?” No! Rob has done plenty of shit worthy of ridicule. He publically supported the racist All Lives Matter movement, is (or at least was, idk how he feels about it at this exact moment I’m not inside his head) pro-NFT, and less crucially but still a factor, he says annoying shit a lot. And I don’t think we could ever get along even in some fantasy scenario where we met. I’m not trying to convince anyone they have to like Rob and I’m not saying every criticism of him is just people looking for stuff to complain about. There’s some real shit there. Probably a lot more shit than I mentioned, even. But. None of that stuff actually has anything to do with his acting. I think after fandom opinion of him started souring, it was just emotionally cleaner for a lot of people to act like Rob had very little to do with the show they liked, actually, and his acting wasn’t even good and had nothing to do with how much they loved Mac (even though… yeah sorry if you love Mac it’s at least partially because you love Rob’s acting. You’re telling me all those great faces he pulls, his improv, his delivery, his hand gestures, and his chemistry with other actors all have NOTHING to do with liking Mac as a character?) 

I completely understand your frustration with having your opinion influenced by all that mess. That’s pretty much the whole reason I don’t interact with a show’s fandom until I’ve seen the entire thing at least once through myself, because fandom opinion really can influence how you see things, even if you try not to let it. I genuinely think a lot fewer people would think of him as a bad actor if it wasn’t such a Thing in the fandom.

And yeah, I think because Ian is. Y’know a character who was clearly planned to have this whole arc and tragic backstory from the very beginning, Rob just has a lot to work with as an actor. Whereas Mac’s narrative purpose has shifted dramatically over the course of Sunny and the more tragic elements of his character were added after the fact instead of always intended, which makes the way Rob plays him feel less consistent to people, because the character is just less consistently written. When Rob’s acting is allowed to fully shine with a well thought out character like Ian, pretty much everyone agrees he’s fantastic. Plus, the Mythic Quest fandom is a lot newer and smaller and so doesn’t have almost 20 years of expectations and opinions about how these characters “should” act like Sunny does. And I think that’s why Mythic Quest fans in general tend to disagree with the Sunny fandom opinion that he’s a bad actor. Because we all know that’s not true. You’re completely valid in seeing it as a whole thing because well. It is a whole thing. Look how many thoughts I have about it just off the top of my head lol.

[larrietalk]

- Is hyping up her film DWD, a film in which the entire premise is basically nonconsensual entrapment and therefore all sexual activity in said film is actually assault, by saying its all about “female pleasure.” 

THIS THIS THIS!!! I HATE THIS SO FUCKING MUCH!!! Idk if y’all remember this was a hot topic when the news of the movie came out and script was leaked, a lot of people were worried that it would encourage assault and they didn't want Harry related to that. And now the very own director is downplaying the whole subject of the movie bc of her fake feminism. I just I hate her so much 😩

Please, Olivia has no idea about feminism, she is a huge pick me girl whose catering to men is disguised as "feminism". Her motto should be “I can do all the shitty things men do, but don’t blame me for them because I AM A WOMAN and you will be misogynistic for that”.

She has such a warped perception of reality that she thinks mentioning sex every 5 minutes is emancipation. It's pretty obvious they are trying to sell that movie on it and Harry performing these sexual activities, with no regard to his character being an abuser which, in my opinion, is pretty gross and offensive to Harry himself.