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batsplat · 7 months ago

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Chad reed on always the entourages creating the drama. I cannot believe that is what caused rosquez downfall but also given the level of Vale's celebrity and the way he carried himself, I can totally believe that it was the entourage (iPad stand I'm looking at you) that brought the end

(about reed's 2020 quotes in this) yeahhh I mean the downfall was caused by a whole bunch of factors, not just any one thing... like all great tragic narratives, it feels inevitable from a global perspective and yet thoroughly preventable in its specifics, with loads of points where you think, 'oh, if things had just gone a little bit differently'... there's this tension in how, in the end, maybe it would've always gone wrong, but a lot had to come together for it to go wrong in quite such a spectacular fashion

reed's definitely correctly identified one of the factors - the entourages, and valentino's entourage specifically. though fwiw, I did cut off the article before reed predicted the marc/fabio rivalry was headed a similar way (this was from 2020, obviously before the arm injury):

for better or for worse, fabio has skipped the villain arc to head straight to the depressed frenchie arc

regardless of whether this rift would have happened or not, the idea that marc would have gotten a new appreciation for the situation valentino found himself in is at least an interesting one. though if anything, the rivalry with fabio would have more closely paralleled valentino's with the other aliens (new talent coming through, but with the previously dominant rider still a regular winner). now is the time marc's learning what it feels like to come back from a prolonged absence from being competitive at the highest level - and of course with a new superstar simultaneously making his debut

so yeah, anyway, tragedy, you can point to all sorts of strains and pressures and tension inherent to professional sport that were exacerbated by the personalities involved and the influence of the media and the passage of time etc etc. but never mind all that, let's get back to entourages! I know you mention everybody's favourite b-list shakespeare villain, but I'm going to basically mostly ignore him because it's well-trodden ground. yeah, it does help to have one guy who's whispering poison into your ear for a prolonged stretch of time before showing up at your motorhome doorstep with a bunch of telemetry and a dream. and yeah, there were people in valentino's entourage definitely encouraging this path to doom. but what I'm also interested in is the flip side - why nobody stopped him

I would like to submit into evidence this passage detailing the thoughts of vale's mechanic alex briggs. now briggs in this excerpt blames two groups for how things went down in 2015:

the yamaha side (specifically the press group) for not talking him down from the ledge before the presser

the crew chief and other assorted italians on the team for being too "yessy" and not standing up to him

let's briefly (for a given value of the word) focus on the first one. if you're a random yamaha pr person and you see the valentino rossi run to a press conference (given he was late) with a bunch of papers in his hands (well, he's not actually holding the papers in those gifs, but presumably somebody's got them), it's probably a tough ask to expect you to hold up the valentino rossi and ask him what exactly he's intending to do with those papers. also, is he really going to back off because you, random yamaha pr person, have asked him to please not accuse the competition of sabotage? added context is that some at yamaha were aware of what valentino thought about the race at phillip island (which we'll get to in a sec), but god knows if the pr people did. unless he confided in anyone on the yamaha side what the plan was, a lot of them would have been blindsided too - which does come back to the problem of how big a deal valentino is and how maybe you're a little more cautious about questioning what he's about to do with those papers than you would be with somebody else. it does feel like perhaps a bit too much to expect for them to have launched some last-minute intervention, or to even know what kind of intervention they could have gone for beyond low-level comedy hijinks to stop him from even getting to that room. why did nobody from yamaha place a banana skin in his path

but we do know that at least some in yamaha were aware of valentino's great big phillip island sabotage theory, because lin jarvis has very helpfully told us as much (from the post-sepang media scrum):

Q: Do you think it was a mistake for Valentino to [provoke?] Marc so much on Thursday with a very personal and hard attack? Jarvis: There are always many different ways of addressing different problems - Valentino chose to do it in that way. Perhaps that is what provoked Marc into being quite aggressive on the track. I really don't know, you need to ask Marc not me about that. Every action has a consequence. That's life. Q: And did you know before that Valentino was going to be so aggressive with Marc in the press conference? Did you know before? Did you discuss with Valentino about this decision or you didn't know until it happened? Jarvis: Personally, I was not aware of that. I was aware of Valentino's opinion of the race in Australia, but I was not aware... but I was not aware that he would - Q: Don't you think because Valentino at the end of the day is an employee of Yamaha he should discuss before with you about such an important decision, to attack a rider of another factory in such a heavy way [...]? Jarvis: You can't control every incident, everything that happens and you know, generally we have a very good [...] relation, connection with our riders, we talk to them before about things before, but anyway I think this is something Valentino felt strongly about and it was his decision and that's it.

note the use of the word "personally", which does leave the door open to others within yamaha (outside of valentino's inner circle) knowing what was going to happen. jarvis, unsurprisingly, comes down pretty firmly on the side of 'well what were we supposed to do'. given that jarvis admits he knew valentino's theory and is hardly a stranger to valentino's modus operandi - after all, he was already team boss at the time of another tense press conference in sepang eleven years prior that took place in the wake of valentino accusing a competitor of messing with him - you do have to wonder whether yamaha could not have tried a little harder to stop valentino. but again, accounting for the power of valentino's status and the power of his character, I'm personally unconvinced yamaha could've done much to convince valentino to change his mind

so then: the italians. a little bit of context - briggs started working with crew chief jerry burgess in 1994 and both of them were on mick doohan's team for all of his five 500cc titles. when doohan's injuries forced his retirement, valentino inherited his championship-winning team upon moving up to 500cc. jb was vale's very first crew chief in the premier class, and him as well as briggs have been working with vale since december 1999. understandably, this is a very tightly-knit group. it is one that made the jump to yamaha with valentino - here's just a quick excerpt (also from oxley's valentino rossi: all his races) about briggs' thoughts on that move:

When Valentino decided to defect to Yamaha, he was determined to have his crew go with him. Only one stayed at HRC. "We first got to know about the Yamaha deal in Portugal, I think [September 2003]," Briggs continues. "I wanted to stay with JB, because I hadn't finished learning what I wanted to learn. "I remember a clandestine meeting in the car park at Phillip Island, about salaries and how everything was going to work. It was really exciting. When I very first started working with Honda the whole group was very much a team. Towards the end we felt like it started to become a bit us and them: the engineers and management, then the mechanics and the riders. They'd sort of got too big for their boots - they'd designed this wonderful bike, so it was like it had nothing to do with us. That made it easier to leave.

and also about the move to yamaha, from the 2020 barker biography of valentino:

But with his trusted crew chief Jerry Burgess and most of his other team members from the Honda garage agreeing to defect with him, Rossi had the crew he needed, not only to win but also to enjoy his racing. It was a heartening display of loyalty and something of a risk for all involved. ‘When I announced to the mechanics that I was going with Valentino they said, “I’m coming too,”’ Burgess later explained. ‘Some of those guys were leaving very secure jobs and taking a big gamble.’

the group also survived the move to ducati (obviously a deeply frustrating two years not just for the guy riding the bike) and the move back to yamaha. but then, valencia 2013, valentino announced his decision to fire jb in a press conference organised for the pair of them. his 2013 season had been deeply frustrating - yes, he had gotten a podium in his first race beating both marc and dani, but after that generally speaking he couldn't come close to matching the other aliens when healthy. he was comfortably the fourth best rider that year, scrapping and clawing his way through midfield battles and having to rely on misfortunes befalling the three title contenders to achieve his podiums and his sole victory at assen. he was considering retiring at the end of the 2014 season once his current contract expired, but wanted to try everything he could to see whether he could be competitive again against the world's very best. and so, he made the decision to roll the dice and get himself a new crew chief, the italian silvano galbusera

now I have to say, personally I have a lot of time for this decision (even if it was maybe not... uh, enacted in the most graceful of manners, given how sudden it was). I come from a sports background where a certain ruthlessness in personnel decisions is encouraged and generally praised - if something isn't working, you should have the courage to make a change, even if it's deeply uncomfortable (including on an interpersonal level). also, while it was a sudden departure, it's not like burgess was that keen on sticking around much longer (again from the same oxley book):

Valentino ended his collaboration very suddenly at the end of 2013. Burgess was shocked but not too much, because he already knew that he was coming to the end of his own career. "When it ended for me I'd already been doing it 30-odd years and I'd told Valentino a few weeks earlier that I wasn't going to sign any more multi-year contracts. I was 60 by then, so I'd go year by year. I'd already signed a contract for 2014, but I would've thought if we hadn't had any more success by then that there wasn't much point in continuing. I felt we would win more races but I was more doubtful about championships. "I'd read enough sporting biographies to know that sportsmen change their coaches towards the end of their careers. It can give them a spike in results but it doesn't change the overall story. Looking back, Valentino's career went on longer than I expected. He enjoyed some success but no more championships and that's what you race for. Of course he was in the unique position of being able to get a factory bike until he retired. He was very special and deserved everything he got."

which, look. again, personal bias, but to me it's reasonable to part ways with somebody who doesn't think any more titles are plausible, because at that point it's just somebody who has a very different view on your career than you do and may well not stick around for much longer anyway. also, at the end of the day, jb was wrong! valentino came extremely close to winning another title, and just because he didn't, doesn't change the fact he could have. if it had rained on the 8th of november 2015 in valencia, we might be having a very different conversation. (or if they hadn't changed the bloody qualifying format post-2012.) honestly, if the 2016 and to a lesser extent the 2017 season had gone just a little differently - a working bike in mugello here and an unbroken leg there - he could have been a genuine title threat in two more seasons. in any case, what it does show is that valentino even at the end of 2013 was still as determined as ever, was ready to engage in what was a huge gamble (given how almost all his success had come with the highly decorated jb) on the off chance he might find what it took to win again. this will not have been an easy decision for valentino. here's a write-up of the presser at valencia, that stresses how uncomfortable the occasion was, how surprising a decision it was to jb, but how publicly at least there was a lack of recriminations (which, to be fair, wouldn't be much fun to do in a shared presser):

(you'll note that the phrasing in the presser about athletes attempting to extend their carrers by changing things up is echoed in what he says in that book interview where he adds that it doesn't change the overall story, again suggesting he didn't really believe valentino would be competitive. he also uses the same phrasing in ANOTHER interview that confirms as much, but I think you get the point.) valentino said at the time, "it was a very difficult decision for me because I have a great history with jeremy. he is not just my chief mechanic. he is like part of my family. my father in racing". this is somebody he'd been working with since age 21, somebody who is not only revered within the paddock for his work with several of the sport's greats but is also a man who valentino obviously has a close personal connection to. meeting for the first time when vale snuck into the honda pit to check out the bike he might ride next season, hitting it off immediately, countless rowdy dinners together, parties, jb and another older colleague sitting back when food fights started, watching valentino grow up, working with him throughout all his big manufacturer switches, all his successes and all his failures... as much as anything else, it's evidence of how strong vale's desire to win was, how determined he continued to be, to make this choice at this stage of his career. and jb was open to the idea (at least publicly) that it might end up being a smart call:

the 'dirtiest' part of the whole affair is how it was actually carried out - it's not great form to tell your crew chief the day before you end up doing a press conference together to announce your choice. for whatever it's worth, this is how valentino justified the timeline:

and lastly, which I think is the most key part, is valentino's belief. because at the end of the day, the only reason why he's doing any of this, and the only reason why what was to come was possible at all, is that he himself still thought that he could challenge for another title - as much as that belief had come under strain:

now what this piece also goes on to say is that nobody believes this will work. nobody believes that firing jb will lead to better results. people expect that this is going to lead to his retirement, quite possibly at the end of 2014. it's worth just remembering sometimes how extraordinary valentino's return to the top of the game post-2013 really was, how it went against how we expect a rider's competitive lifecycle to work, went far beyond the longevity exhibited by any top rider before or since - all while going up against riders who are widely believed to be some of the best to ever do it. valentino beat jorge in both 2014 and 2016, and remains one of two people to outscore prime marc marquez over the course of a season. not to engage in too much rossi prop here, but sepang 2015 can't really be understood without all the frustration that led up to it, to this one golden chance, this miracle that everybody had believed to be impossible (sometimes even valentino). this wasn't supposed to be happening. it was happening. and then, so so close to the finish line, valentino could feel it slipping, slipping, slipping away

but of course, we still don't know whether changing crew chiefs is the key factor that made him competitive again. maybe he just needed a bit longer to get back into the swing of things post-ducati disaster. maybe the bikes just started to suit him better. hey, maybe it was that nifty exercise regime he'd engaged in a wee spot of espionage for so that he could pinch it off his teammate. what we can say, however, is that valentino's choice both tells us a lot about his mindset, as well as (to finally bring us back to the actual point of this post) representing a massive shift in his 'entourage'. this is what briggs is referring to in his quote - the italians. the new crew chief. the people who couldn't stand up to valentino. now obviously, as mentioned above briggs had worked with jb for the better part of twenty years and can hardly be considered a neutral party. here were briggs' feelings on the matter (yeah it's from the same oxley book again, I got it new for eighteen quid which is a very generous price, would recommend):

When JB was out at the end of 2013 it was like losing my mechanic dad. I remember being in the garage when we found out about it. Then they arranged a kind of farewell, a kind of hodgepodge farewell. It was terrible, I didn't like any of it. I was just hiding behind one of the bikes in the garage, crying, going, what's going on here? It didn't seem right to me. I think maybe Valentino thought he would get faster again sooner, but I think it took at least a year to get the taste of the Ducati out of his mouth. I think if he'd stayed with JB we would've won the championship in 2015.

which. look. we don't have time to unpack all that. but. the point is that obviously briggs wasn't exactly a massive fan of the change within valentino's team, and his comments about the 2015 season do have to be read with that in mind. as to whether vale really would have done better in 2015 with jb at his side, your guess is as good as mine. all that being said, a part of me wonders how much losing that grounding presence enabled valentino's late-2015 spiral. maybe not in terms of talking valentino out of the great big fluctuating lap times treachery theory - to state the obvious, valentino got himself involved in plenty of drama during jb's time as a crew chief. jb himself occasionally helped add fuel to the fire in those feuds, like his infamous comment about how he would be able to fix the ducati's issues in 80 seconds that casey still brings up every three business days (the comments were poorly phrased but also somewhat taken out of context, in that jb was talking about a specific set-up problem). he's generally been pretty happy to be forthright about valentino's rivals, for instance this about casey:

My feeling at the time was that Casey probably only had one game plan, and having watched Casey over the years, he doesn't have a plan B. If it doesn't go his way from the outset, it's probably one of the weaknesses that he had through the youth that he had, through the lack of experience that he had. That's not a criticism of him per se, he was still only 22 at the time.

(this is about laguna seca 2008 and how he helped valentino win that race, including in plotting out vale's rather ruthless tactics - which casey was of course not exactly a fan of.) or these. uh. harsh comments about dani from spring 2010:

Q: Is that atmosphere or track knowledge? Is it like the Spanish finding something extra at the racetracks in Spain? JB: Well, therein we show the weakness, don't we? If you can get up on that weekend, on the technical racetracks of Spain, why can't you get up on the technical racetracks like Australia, where the Italians do? Lorenzo is a guy who will and does. Stoner has been able to get up on tracks all over the world. Unfortunately, Dani Pedrosa's into his 6th year in MotoGP, and he's won 8 races, Jorge Lorenzo's two months into his 3rd and he's won 6. It's night and day between those two, is the way I see it. Dani's an extremely fast rider, but a shockingly poor racer. Q: Were you surprised at Jerez [2010] when Pedrosa fought back when Lorenzo passed him? JB: When did Dani fight back? With two laps to go, and he didn't even get close enough to try to come back. Dani has never been a fighter in races, he's a lovely kid, don't get me wrong, but you can see that Lorenzo, having Pedrosa in front of him, it was never going to be the way he was going to finish that race. He was going to finish on the ground or he was going to finish in front of Pedrosa. That's the sort of race that we want, we had that with Biaggi and Valentino, and from history with Schwantz and Rainey. All the good riders have always had somebody they have had to put the target on the back of. It was Doohan and Gardner, and Doohan won that battle hands down, and I think Jorge Lorenzo's going to win this battle [with Pedrosa] hands down.

kind of a dick! so his attitude to valentino being valentino has generally been a) well having enemies is good, actually, with an added slice of b) good luck to his enemies :) - see also this quote (from the barker biography) in the context of the gibernau rivalry:

And that made Rossi even more dangerous, as Jerry Burgess pointed out: ‘Valentino is the sort of rider I wouldn’t want to get angry. He can take you apart on the track.’

so yes, jb is also perfectly brutal in his own right, as you presumably have to be to work alongside valentino so closely for so long. he is, however, also somebody valentino has a massive amount of respect for, somebody who helped turn him into a legend and is responsible for a lot of vale's success - not least, of course, in the pivotal move to yamaha. he was replaced by a man of a far far lesser stature in the sport, one who presumably would have been grateful to valentino for the biggest job he was ever going to get. if briggs is right and there was a shift in valentino in 2015, surrounded as he was by italians (derogatory) who could not stand up to him, who allowed valentino to insist on war and peace on the pit boards, to focus more and more on things that had nothing to do with riding... it would be going a little too far to say that valentino was missing an adult in the room given he was, in fact, in his thirties and should have been capable of being that adult. and who knows what jb would have said or thought or done about the great big childhood hero deception theory. but sepang 2015 was the culmination of a lot of things, including a pressure cooker of a season that grew more and more tense and put more and more stress on everyone involved - perhaps for none more so than valentino. maybe, just maybe, if he'd had somebody around him with fifteen years of experience in handling him, who could have just occasionally told him to knock it off, to concentrate on the racing, to keep things simple (always jb's defining philosophy), to maybe not get so wrapped up in the great big spanish collusion theory...

or maybe it wouldn't have mattered! maybe we're getting cause and effect all wrong here; maybe valentino was deliberately fashioning his entourage into one that was only going to give him positive feedback. maybe he would have just stopped listening to jb, maybe the very decision to fire jb makes it clear he was no longer interested in what jb had to say. it's a tragedy, after all! maybe it was always going to go like this. maybe it was always going to end like this

speaking of entourages, marc's manager played a bit of a cameo role in fanning the flames just a little further (article from marca, 26/10/2015):

alzamora obviously will be somebody valentino is familiar with, having raced him in 125cc and also having just coexisted in the paddock over the years. valentino could of course be lying, but idk, why would he? he's already made his case by this point, and what if alzamora were to contradict him? if it's true and this conversation did happen, you do have to say it's a spectacularly unhelpful intervention from alzamora. even if marc was mad at valentino, why the hell are you telling valentino this AFTER sepang 2015? what's the plan here buddy

^ 1999 world champions: alzamora in 125cc, vale in 250cc and alex criville in 500cc. people think motogp lore is complicated but if you know like, five guys, you're set for about twenty years of drama

which does get to the heart of the matter - a lot of these people have big egos and their own agendas and they love to run their mouths. they like talking a big game and getting involved in things they really shouldn't be getting involved in. is reed right that these people in the riders' entourages 'created the drama'? well, no, I think the two men at the centre of this particular tragedy were plenty capable of doing that themselves. nevertheless, you can point to how professional sports (and motogp in particular) forces you to rely heavily on a small group of people to keep you sane at the centre of the storm, and the risks that can emerge when that small group collectively unmoors itself from reality. you can point to the perils of fame, both in making your reliance on your inner circle so unnegotiable as well as in providing you with the status and power and ego to ignore anyone who might wish to change your mind. you can point to specific figures in this story who managed to incite the conflict between the two of them, as well as how the pressure cooker competitive environment they were operating within helped set up the ultimate catastrophe. you can point to how valentino lacked anyone with the power to stop him - both in the direct sense of forcing him to reconsider and the indirect sense of commanding his respect enough to make him see sense. maybe, just like in 2004, valentino had simply been "looking for an excuse" and he was always headed down this path. or maybe if somebody had just held him back a little that year, kept him focused on his riding, maybe if the right person had intervened at the right time...

maybe, maybe, maybe. that's why it's a tragedy

#valentino rossi #rosquez #//#4693 #i get the sense he's unpopular on here but EYE will miss lin jarvis. i think he's funny sorry. him and his certifiably insane employees #i loveeee that media scrum love his very dry lil summary of events acting like we're not so so far down the rabbit hole #anon: man fuck that ipad stand #me: lemme tell you a tale about a man called jerry burgess and the daddy issues he inspired in multiple grown men #and yes the fact that valentino unceremoniously dumped his 'paddock father' is. interesting :) i get him ughhh #also on the flip side i am curious what kind of conversations were going on in the marc camp during that sepang weekend #alzamora's two big contributions to the rosquez saga: 1) trying to stop marc from going to the ranch #and 2) telling vale that marc was mad at him for argentina and assen and in doing so helping back up vale's theory #what was he cooking #batsplat responds #idol tag #brr brr

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longing-for-rain · 6 months ago

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what do you think of the argument some people make that goes along the lines of "zuko was acting entitled towards kataras forgiveness and the betrayal at the catacombs was just a second thought to him"? According to them, zuko failed to understand that kataras anger at him was a direct consequence of his previous decisions and instead blames it on her resentment against the fire nation (the whole "i think she sees me as her mother's murderer" spiel). They also claim that he's a raging misogynist bc of the way he treated katara in the pirate episode, that he didnt remember her name when asking sokka abt the southern raiders, taunting her in the northern tribe by saying she is a big girl now that she's learned some new tricks, referring to the kyoshi warriors as a "bunch of little girls", yelling at mai and acting possessively, mocking ty lee... amidst many other things, including the toxic masculinity accusations ofc. They also condemn his selfishness in helping katara find some semblance of closure. I think a great part of this is just biased hate, but i just wanted to know your opinion. It's okay if you don't want to answer though!

Oh no of course, I think it’s definitely biased hate, because these kinds of superficial “criticisms” only seem to come up in response to people shipping Zuko with the incorrect character. I’ve seen the same people who make these arguments praise Zuko, say they love him, say his redemption is inspiring, etc. in other contexts.

There is a lot to unpack here, but I’ll touch on all these points because I find them interesting. Also, in regards to generally stupid anti Zuko takes from whiny anti shippers, a lot of those came up here which I addressed in detail.

Now, about these particular arguments.

1) Zuko wanted Katara’s forgiveness out of selfishness

Firstly, I never understood this take because in context…Zuko already has what he set out to get when he left the Fire Nation at the beginning of The Southern Raiders. Actually, let’s take a step back here: leaving the Fire Nation. Did these people collectively forget that? Zuko could have stayed in his life of luxury, watched the world burn, and inherited the title of Emperor from his father. But instead, he committed treason, risking his life in the process, because he knew in his heart it was the right thing to do. This is the character you’re trying to smear as a selfish monster?

Anyways.

The Southern Raiders. The scene which kicks off the conflict with Katara is when the group is sitting around the fire, praising Zuko for his heroism and saving them from Azula. He humbly admits he doesn’t feel he deserves the praise, to which Katara agrees and storms off. But the important piece of context here is that everyone else—including Sokka, Katara’s own brother—seems to be on Zuko’s side. If Zuko was purely selfish, he wouldn’t have cared what Katara thought of him. He could have laughed along with Sokka and agreed that Katara was just being dramatic. But that isn’t what happened.

Zuko doesn’t look angry or vindictive here; he looks hurt. He cares what Katara thinks of him; he later says those words verbatim to Sokka.

I also think the fact that Zuko made a special effort to reach out to Katara above the other characters shows that he recognizes that the catacombs incident was much more personal for Katara. Zuko even acknowledges this himself.

Zuko: Katara mentioned it before when we were imprisoned together in Ba Sing Se, and again just now when she was yelling at me. I think somehow she's connected her anger at that to her anger at me.

Zuko remembers their conversation very well. Katara’s anger towards him was different than the others because she felt betrayed on a more personal level. She shared something deeply personal with Zuko and connected with him, and felt deceived when he betrayed her.

In Katara’s mind, Zuko talking about his mother was fake. She tells herself it was just him lying to her and manipulating her to gain her trust, because that’s easier than the idea that he didn’t care. I believe this is why Zuko finds it so important to make it up to her…and specifically why her mother was involved. Obviously Zuko was wrong to side with Azula. But he wasn’t being manipulative or uncaring. He was manipulated himself by Azula, the person who knows how to control him better than anyone else.

So, in this episode, Zuko is not setting out to prove that he’s “good” (he’s already done this); he’s setting out to show Katara that he does respect her trauma, he does understand and respect the weight of what she told him about her mother. Zuko can tell she’s deeply hurt and that he’s part of that hurt. That’s why he wants to demonstrate that his care for her was and is genuine. He never lied to her. And that right there is the opposite of selfishness. This is once again Zuko acknowledging his own faults and taking responsibility for fixing them. He doesn’t even seem to demand or expect forgiveness in the end.

Look at his face. He’s surprised. He did not expect this gesture, although he graciously accepts it.

If Zuko was this selfish, entitled monster people want him to be, he wouldn’t react this way. He wouldn’t even care about any of the points I just went through.

If you honestly believe that Zuko’s motivation was selfish and he was just manipulating Katara’s feelings this whole time, you fundamentally missed the point of one of the show’s most critically acclaimed episodes.

2) Zuko didn’t know Katara’s name (?)

This one is just stupid. I’m sorry. I didn’t know people actually used this argument because it originated as a joke post and you should be embarrassed if you genuinely think this is canon. It comes from the scene in The Southern Raiders where Zuko says “your sister” rather than “Katara” when asking Sokka about their mother.

There is absolutely nothing about this scene indicating that Zuko doesn’t know Katara’s name. The word choice is most likely to emphasize the sibling relationship between Katara and Sokka to explain both to Sokka and to the audience why Zuko sought him out specifically.

And think about it. Zuko has been hanging around 24/7 with them for probably two weeks at this point. There is no way he didn’t catch Katara’s name, if he didn’t already know it. And given how diligent he was in his Avatar hunting days, he most likely did already know it.

3) The pirate episode

Okay I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…I’m so tired of people projecting some weird, creepy sexual undertones onto this episode. There was absolutely nothing abusive or misogynistic about the character interactions here. It was a very standard (and honestly a bit cheesy) example of a cartoon villain and hero interaction. The fact that you see a female character in any kind of distressed situation and immediately project sexual implications onto it is the real misogyny here. I never see people complain about similar scenes involving male characters:

I could dig up even more examples but can you see my point? The argument that there was any abuse or sexual misconduct on Zuko’s part this episode is absolutely misogyny—but it’s audience misogyny; not Zuko’s. The canon scene would have gone exactly the same way if Katara was male. The only difference would be much fewer disgusting sexual over-analyzations of it by fans.

4) “Little girls”

For this one, an important piece of context to keep in mind is that this script was written in 2005 by a creative staff of mostly men. So we need to ask the question, is this meant to reflect misogyny on Zuko’s part, it is it the bias of the writers?

Another prime example of this is Iroh’s interactions with Jun. Obviously, that was severely creepy behavior and absolutely misogynistic. However, most fans (including myself) tend to overlook that. Why? Because it’s jarringly inconsistent with the rest of Iroh’s character and his purpose within the narrative. In context, it’s pretty obviously something the writers thought was “funny” at the time but aged like rotten milk.

Also, in regards to sexist language during fights, consider all the stupid lines like…

Azula: Who are you? The Avatar’s fan girls?

Ty Lee: You are not prettier than we are.

…in the Kyoshi Warriors vs. Dangerous Ladies fight. Seems like this is just a writer bias issue, personally. When have men ever been normal about teenage girls? Right—never.

I get this is a slippery slope, so my approach is to compare Zuko’s lines like this to everything else we know about Zuko and ask the question: is there anything about Zuko’s character that indicates he views women as inherently inferior or lesser?

Well, no.

You know what is a trend for Zuko? He focuses on putting down his opponents by acting like they’re younger and weaker than him. His first reaction to Aang is “you’re just a child.” This is consistent with his attitude towards Katara and the Kyoshi Warriors. Zuko canonically treats male and female opponents no differently. He fights and moves on. No creepiness, nothing like Iroh and Jun, etc. If they were male, it wouldn’t have gone differently. That’s why I think it’s a reach to say these comments by themselves indicate a misogynistic attitude.

Besides, why would Zuko see women as weaker and lesser when this is who he grew up with?

That’s another thing. For as much anger and resentment Zuko harbors for Azula on the basis that she’s Ozai’s favorite and born lucky—not one comment is made about her sex. If Azula was male, nothing would inherently change about this dynamic. So yeah, I’m not really buying this whole “Zuko is a misogynistic incel” narrative. If you’ve ever dealt with incels in any capacity, you know they’d absolutely jump at the opportunity to whine that their (female) sister is so much more lucky and privileged and loved compared to them.

5) Zuko, Mai, and The Beach

I’m working on a longer analysis of this but to summarize…people on both sides blow this issue way out of proportion. Mai wasn’t abusive. Zuko wasn’t abusive. They were a pretty standard angsty teenage couple having angsty teenage drama. Zuko called Mai a big blah and shoved some dude into a vase. Mai told him he was out of control. That’s literally such a minor issue, that they resolved by the end of the episode.

But to dig into this more, consider the point this is in Zuko’s story. He’s at rock bottom. The premise of the entire episode is to show how abnormal and out of place Zuko feels among people who should be his peers. His issues with Ruon-Jian aren’t even about Mai to start. Zuko was beefing with this dude before the party even started, remember?

Why is Zuko mad at him? Because he’s making Zuko feel freakish. He’s making Zuko feel like he once again is an outcast, and Zuko hates that. He’s insecure. That’s…the point of the episode.

I’m not going to excuse his tantrum over Ruon-Jian talking to Mai, because that was toxic, but consider the context. Zuko isn’t some crazy possessive freak. In his mind, this is just icing on the cake, another example of why he’s an antisocial freak compared to other Fire Nation teens and he hates how it makes him feel.

But interestingly enough, I do think Mai and Zuko’s interactions in that scene give some insight into their dynamic and Zuko’s character—believe it or not, in a positive way. Just consider the context and body language.

I’m just stating facts here. Zuko is more physically threatening than Mai. He’s bigger, stronger, male, and he’s a firebender while she isn’t a bender. And yet, Mai has absolutely no trouble getting in his business to tell him off. Why? You can argue that it’s just because she thinks she could knife him—but we’ve seen how she reacts to an actual physical threat (Azula) and it isn’t like this at all. Mai is confident because she knows Zuko wouldn’t physically harm her. He’s angry, but he never once uses his figure to physically intimidate her. He clearly doesn’t make a habit of this behavior either judging from Mai’s reaction. Also think about the fact that the only physical altercation here is between Zuko and another man. The primary target of his anger isn’t the woman he’s allegedly acting possessive over unlike another character in the Ember Island Players and several comics…

Not to mention the way they reconcile around the fire. Zuko’s behavior doesn’t at all reflect an angry, entitled misogynist who thinks he owns his girlfriend. Quite the opposite. He clearly holds a lot of love and respect for her. It’s just that…this episode is literally displaying Zuko at his most tortured, his most self-hating, his most insecure as he realizes he no longer has a place in the home he’d desperately been chasing for years after being brutally mutilated and banished. With that in mind, I think he actually handled himself very well.

The thing about Zuko is that he takes accountability for his wrongs and works to improve himself. He has flaws and even when they’re understandable, he still takes responsibility for fixing them. That’s the trait of his that sets him apart from…certain other characters.

6) Zuko being rude to Ty Lee

Again, see above. Yes, Zuko was mean to her. But again, this is Zuko at rock bottom. This is Zuko venting his frustration about nobody being able to understand what he’s gone through and how isolated and freakish he feels. None of them had their faces burnt off in front of an audience. None of them were banished and forced to live as refugees. Zuko blew up at Ty Lee in the first place after she made a comment about bad skin.

Like yes, he’s rude, but did you miss the point of that episode? If you think this has anything to do with misogyny you’re just delusional, sorry. That interaction had nothing to do with Ty Lee being female. It had to do with her (and every other character that episode) living a privileged lifestyle while Zuko is (literally, too) feeling the weight of the scars his trauma has left him with.

So in conclusion, yes, I really think these takes are all shallow and unfounded jabs at Zuko’s character that either don’t understand or outright ignore critical parts of his development and story. And considering I’m #canceled for my based misandry in many circles, it should say a lot that I’m defending a man of any kind ✌️

#zuko #mai #zutara #maiko #atla #zuko defense squad #aang critical #canon critical #the beach #the southern raiders #ask #anon #meta

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ganondoodle · 5 months ago

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fuck it, elden ring DLC rant (spoilers) (long post ... oh dear)

so, to start this- this is a very emotional reaction, so take everything with a ton of salT (i need to get this out of my system bc i need to go and do stuff today, i literally couldnt get much more than 3 hours of sleep bc my mind was racing) i only know two screenshots and what others have told me (thank you) so i might be missing more context and havent seen or read it myself

(more details and spoilers for the DLC below the read more thingy)

also, just to explain a bit, i dont usually get this upset about things i like, i like alot of things, but its RARE as fuck that i care, like actually care care about something, and that just kinda happens, i dont choose it or can decide to not care, i just do, and when something like this happens its like ... a sort of grief? i cant help but care about it but it messes with me emotionally, i have no control over it and cant change anything about it when it gets bad or done dirty, leavign me to just have to watch it be real even when i dont want to accept it-- i wouldnt say so much that i 'expect' somethign specific and cant handle when its not like that (common accusation about disliking totk)- and no i dont have somethign specific in mind, i just dont want it to be bad OR things that seem done and closed off suddendly out of nowhere be revealed to 'actually' have been like this, new stuff that either makes no sense or invalidates alot about what i valued about it, what i thought was the point

(i remember two .. my only two other intersts before- see what i mean RARE- that also went down simiarly like this; transformers (bay movies and mainly prime series, listen i didnt choose it either) with each movie it got more messy and stupid, primes second(?) season had an end i hated and the following movie was the final nail in the coffin- and one piece after that, which i slowly fell out of love with bc every chapter seemed to go more into a direction i didnt like, then the reveal that luffy is a god actually was my final ok i hate that moment)

i knew demise for a long time but wasnt obsessed about him at all, it took me learning about how hylia was depicted in a non canon (?) manga (which made me annoyed me bc i didnt like it and made a design for her to counter demises instead) and then reading his few lines of dialog about her again that it suddendly HIT me, like cupids arrow into my head-- i liked but wasnt that super interested into elden ring until radahn showed up, instantly his design made me go owo and then learning his (base game) lore it HIT me (i love sort of tragic side characters that might have been powerful or heroic at some point but now arent anymore- not saying he is that elden rings lore i messy and no ones good tm- and especially so if that character is widely hated for no good reason, dismissed or forgotten, has little lore etc)

i have things i like but dont care this much about, like okami or bloodborne, i like it alot, theres characters i really like (oki) but im not like, fixated on them?- and to have two at the same time, while not equally strong, i dont think i had before, and then have both be damaged or potentially lose it in a similar way within barely a year hurts so damn much--- anyway, getting into the actual rant now lol

so, to sum things up (that i know), in the elden ring DLC later on

miquella is actually a master manipulator and brainwasher (even to his sister???? which means alot of impactful things about his relationship to people is kinda invalidated or made meaningless, shitty)

he wanted to become a god by marrying radahn (his half? brother, same father) of all people that has never been mentioned before until now somehow?? ) you can argue it was hinted to but i find it completely out of left field

miquella sent malenia after radahn to kill him so he could be put into the realm of shadow so miquella could marry him (there were better candidates for that??)- its unclear (to me) if radahn ever actually accepted when sound of mind or even knew about it at all, but failed and he was isntead inflicted with rot to slowly waste away but not die (like he is in base game)

which also means that, what i found really impactful in base game, the festival of radahn, that i thought was a tragic sort of last wish/effort for of radahn to grant him an honorable death as a respected general after being made into mindless people eating zombie, organized by his soldiers/friends- might have been just yet another attempt to kill him and get him over there to miquella (and even if not, it still makes it way less impactful and now i feel like letting him continue to roam as a zombie is more of a favor than killing him bc hes just gonna a puppet again! which turns the whole tradgedy of the stuff in base game on its head imo)

you need to kill him to get into the DLC (and i was even sus of that but shrugged it off when i heard it ..) bc that way miquella could take whatever was left of his soul and stitch it into mohgs corpse?? (which is why hes so small in that DLC fight) bc his body was rotten by that point, which also allowed miquella to control radahn and make him agree, force him to do whatever miq wanted (which ALSO might mean mohg 'kidnapping' miquella wasnt that actually but mohg too was manipulated so oud kill him and make his remains usable)

radahn in DLC is a voiceless meat puppet essentially ... like a mindless rotting zombie eating friends and fow alike wasnt enough- also means that we never ACTUALLY GET OT KNOW RADAHN HIMSELF bc hes eithe a zombie or a literal puppet (if you are gonna do him dirty at least let us meet actual real him *cries*)

his fight is super hard apparently (though i have been hearing people complain about the entire DLC being too hard, while the -casual player- streamer i watched is beating main bosses so fast they dont even get to start their second phase) when his fight in base game, and him by extentsion, was also hated bc of that ALREADY, which means more people are gonna hate his guts (he doesnt deserve that!!) AND most people probably wont get or care that its not actually HIM him so its like a repeat boss that everyone hates

it feels weirldy forced in for it to be radahn (like miquella was already said to be one of the strongest gods out there .. why hed want radahn so badly when his goal seemed to be rather .. combat less?? if you get what i mean, and radahn also rejected him??? and the tarnished is right there too????) bc theres plenty others it would have worked with that are barely used- it feels like someone jsut wanting him to be tha main guy not matter what (when he worked so much better as a side character!!!!)

a tragic but well rounded off side character (imo) was made into the main guy this is all about actually tm (i generally dont like main guys and this jsut feels so .... it just hurts, it didnt feel foreshadowed at all, and its not even truly HIM that is reveal to be a creepy asshat but hes just manipulated and controlled with the whole time, be it by rot or miquella)

and for miquella its like, no theres no even mildly good people there, hes brainwashed and manipulated everyone actually tm, a giant plan all to force his half brother into marrying him by making him into a corpse puppet bc he rejected miquella- inlcuding potentially manipulating his own twin sister, which goes agaisnt what you learn of what hes done for her in the base game i think?? (not that much into that part but yeah ... it feels unfair to her too)

it also kinda just leaves other lore from the base game in the dust? like the whole haligtree plan, how miquella cared for the rejected (i guess he didnt then??? and it was just more manipulation tm??) that castle with the eclipse stuff

(is the gloom eyes queen, marika, and or st trina even .. important at all to any of this??)

ok from reading tweets from people talkign about it, miquella says radahn agreed apparently but whether thats true remains uncertain and given the circumstances i do not think radahn did- others said that it kinda sounds he agreed to something that he didnt think would involve him marrying miquella

everything feels like its in shambles for every fan of every involved chaarcter

yes i know you can argue that it was all planned from the start and meant to be a twist and everything and that people having a different idea of characters isnt the fault of the creators .... only to some degree bc why then build up make so much lore and story about stuff that turns out to be like saying 'actually it was all a lie' like its not valid to feel betrayed then, you can plan things out all you want but that doesnt mean it cant be bad oder underwhelming

(i wished to be able to meet or know more about radahn but like in a non rot way or like past flashback whatever kind of way and then not like this anyway, like i was interested into his relationship with jerren and just .. more about him i suppose the monkey paw has curled hasnt it -or however you say that-)

and there i was like two days ago going "omg radahn mention!!!" when that one .. feyja? NPC says she fought alongside him at some point ............................................................

leonard isnt there in the DLC to my knowledge, you know it cant be truly radahn if his horse isnt there (the sole reason he learned gravitiy magic for and it stayed with him even after the rot!!! i know people have started to hate it bc people love that but i love that, it made him so endearing to me, like a character i already found cool omg has a confirmed softer spot??? in MY fromsoftware title??)

sorry for the long post of rambling, i am a mess, barely slept 3 hours, yes i am weird to care, autisms or whatever .. i need to go somewhere in an hour and havent prepared as all bc i needed my thoughts out of my head- might have forgotten stuff, idk if i will add it later or just kinda .. stew in it for a while

(and yes a big point why i feel so strongly is both bc its just gonna make more people hate him even more AND feels so invalidating of alot of other stuff- pulls other characters down with it- the entire time i was watching the streams i and trailers i thought i was like, its onw thing, with miquellas littel adventure and more background info on marika mostly on its own from the base game BUT NO I GUESS)

(read all this in the sense of an utteraly disoriented confused and drunken seagull yelling around pls i am not in serious mental distress ..)

#ganondoodles talks #elden ring #elden ring spoilers #i just .....#hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh #congrats! everyone loses! yippie!#gonna cope with it better later but had to get it out #and i dont have time ofr more tags i need to get going urgently #feel free to add your own knowledge- grievances whatever to this #long post

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kexing · 1 year ago

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Its so wild to see how openly and aggressively people hate forcebook and their work. Iknow bl opinions are so varied but other than the odd 'this is not for me' i never really come across hate for pairings on here (maybe its different on twitter idk) so its so insane that when it comes to fb people just stop being considerate to fans or even look to bother them actively. there are some actors who get rightly criticized for awful behaviour but with fb it just seems like its the one pairing that people are allowed to shit on and thats why they do it? bc what's the worst they've done? not act the way you would want them to or take part in a show you didn't like?? why would people then focus so much on them rather than focus on the stuff they do like? its so baffling i truly wonder if its just 'playground join in with the bully' behaviour. sorry thats been on my mind as someone who only filters into bl every now and then, its so strange.

hi there!

RIGHT????? before them, i had never seen hate for pairings on this level. i knew about some problematic actors and pairings that had broken up so most people had moved on but actual gratuitous hate??? was unknown to me.

i used to think we all minded our business with our faves and everyone lived in peace. at least it was like that here on tumblr for my first years of bl. i do think twitter is different and probably worse, but the way their behavior has been poisoning tumblr as well is concerning.

truly. i don’t KNOW what’s with forcebook that people seem to enjoy hating on them. they’ve been on the public eye for nearly two years now, they have zero rumors, zero scandals, zero accusations, work hard, just do their thing, openly support the lgbtq+ community, all their coworkers like them, for fanfest in japan geminifourth, joong and phuwin went to force’s room in the middle of the night to hang out because their adore spending time with him, their previous directors adore them, p’film considers forcebook his actual children and p’new opens his arms for book to bear hug him whenever he sees him.

hell, even their old classmates from school came forward to say they were really nice people back then. that force was popular because he was friends with everyone and book was quiet but sweet.

when there’s actual deeply problematic actors out there. people who get accused of unspeakable things EVERY SINGLE DAY. and fans still defend them and give them 937482848384 chances.

it just doesn’t make sense to me. WHY would you be so obsessed with someone you don’t like? focus on your faves instead of complaining about other people just doing their job!!!!!!!!!!

i do usually call it “hate train” because it seems like everybody’s hopping on it just because it’s going around a lot.

but STILL. i see some criticism that’s just baffling. the way people will take forcebook’s words out of context and attack them with it, invent shit saying they’re nepotism babies (they are not). some even use forcebook’s friendship against them which is????? surreal. jobless behavior. go find a hobby or something else to do???? WHAT ARE YOU GAINING FROM ALL THIS?????

force and book are very open about their friendship and how it’s not perfect because they like being honest with us instead of painting a false image of their relationship, it’s not for people to turn it into weapons!! the disrespect is just so infuriating!

i’m not asking for everyone to start loving forcebook, just RESPECT THEM. or even ignore them. but don’t ruin things for them 😭😭😭 and us fans who are just trying to support them.

it’s okay! i wonder about the same things every single day. and i sincerely don’t know if i’m just too biased or something but i have never understood the amount of hate and still don’t because i would never do this to anyone. i never expected things to become like this.

but oh well :/

#anonymous #mj got mail!

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mhevarujta · 10 months ago

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Saltburn and The Talented Mr Ripley

I keep reading that Saltburn is a dollarstore version of The Talented Mr Ripley and I disagree... strongly.

1)This movie is a mix of genres and in open dialogue with many movies and books. People act as if this makes it unoriginal, but creators doing this consciously (and Fennell is very open about her influences) is not something new and WAS in fact used in movies and literature to make works exist not just individually, but also within genres and traditions, in comparison to one another. I don't think it's a matter of being uninspired and it's lovely that a movie that is meant to be pure, delicious fun has this much work put behind it.

2)Fennell herself has said that she loves Highsmith even though, when writing Saltburn, Ripley was not in her mind consciously like gothics and british country house stories.

I DO think that, subconsciously or not, she WAS affected by Ripley, but I still find that the similarities are contextualized within the genres and themes that interest HER. Some comparisons:

-Oliver is not in it for money in the beginning. He's not a poor, ill-treated-by-family opportunist who's working in whatever manner he can to get by or who HAS to be deeply closeted because his society and several specific characters have shamed him for his sexuality.

-The scene of Oliver cleaning Farleigh's room is compared to Tom cleaning up after Dickie and the latter snapping. A main difference I see is that in the Ripley-movie (this scene was not in the book), this is a very minor moment and Dickie is living up to his name short of two letters because he's irritable, grieving and guilty. In Saltburn, this scene is very different in context. Oliver is not cleaning casually. Felix complains about the heat and he's still like a piglet in his own filth, too rich to raise his finger. I DO remember my time at campus during the summer and the temperature in there, and the idea of two-days-old remnants of food being thrown in a room and having started to smell? Oh, boy. While what Oliver said can be seen as insulting, it can also be seen as honest and Felix's reaction as kinda immature and wanting to both be what he is and never be judged in the slightest, even if it's not in an ill-intended manner. This shows us part of who Felix is, why people put on performances for him, and how Oliver observes, acting on a trial and error basis, and shifts his performance as he goes along to fit to what is wanted of him. This is a scene that does a lot of groundwork in a small timespan.

-Unlike both book and movie-Dickie, this never becomes a story about Felix leading Oliver on. Whether Felix is aware of Oliver's feelings for him is never at the forefront. In fact, it's quite likely that they haven't registered, just like many things don't for him, and that's part of the story the movie is telling and of the criticism it's making.

-I'd also like to compare the three murders. I'm saying three because book!Ripley and movie!Ripley have different murder-scenes. In the movie, Dickie's annoyance and resentment escalate in the boat. Tom is finally honest in a way he never has been for, accusing Dickie of putting on a show himself, of leading him on, of being the one dishonest about his feelings etc. After all, by that point Tom has used honesty as manipulation in the beginning and has been genuinely honest later. The murder happens in the heat of the moment. In the book the murder is 200% premeditated. Tom had settled upon murdering Dickie and taking his identity before they are even on that boat. In fact, being on that boat is part of Tom's plan, and some final moments of having Dicke back in a good mood and experiencing his 'light' again, to not stay his hand.

In Oliver's case there is a very different quality to the murder. Felix has not reached some point of being bored. He has learned of Oliver's excessive lies and can't look at him as the same person no matter what Oliver says. Oliver deep down gets the gravity of that, yet he feels indignant because he knows that all people around Felix play little parts and doesn't see himself as being any different. In this case, the murder is premeditated, but undesired. Oliver wings the murder after his and Farleigh's discussion, being afraid that all of this will become a dream he is reminiscent over while he lives a miserable life, having become like his parents. The manner of it is inspired by the scene he witnesses when he tries to approach Felix in the bathroom during the party and when he sees Farleigh too doing lines. But even then, the confrontation in the Labyrinth is very real and heated. Even with the premeditation, Oliver is deeply desirous of having Felix's light sign upon him again and ready to put and end to his plan if that happened. It's never about taking everything away from Felix. It's about: 'If I can't have you, if you won't have me, you can't exist.' It's about Oliver's last hope being crushed. The rest is only the result of growing resentment and hatred, combined with an inability to let go and a need to feel victorious; a conqueror.

My point is that I don't reject the comparisons, but I think that there is thought, effort and depth behind the writing of this movie and it's not some downgrade.

#saltburn #oliver quick #felix catton #the talented mr. ripley #emerald fennell

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ikuzeminna · 1 year ago

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AI tries to explain: early Relena hatred

ChatGPT, explain why Relena Peacecraft of "Mobile Sit Gundam Wing" was falsely disliked by many fans in the early 2000s.

Relena Peacecraft, a central character in "Mobile Suit Gundam Wing," was indeed a polarizing figure among fans in the early 2000s and even when the series originally aired in the late 1990s. Several factors contributed to her initially negative reception: Initial Perceptions: At the beginning of the series, Relena comes across as a seemingly naive and idealistic character. Her initial persona as a sheltered pacifist and diplomat's daughter contrasted sharply with the Gundam pilots, who were more action-oriented and stoic. This contrast led some viewers to find her character annoying or out of place in a mecha anime.

For the early 2000s the truth is more shallow than that in that Relena is simply female and has a pink limo which upset a lot of ..."fans" who had never watched a single episode up to that point yet read loads and loads of fanfics and were suddenly confronted with the fact that Heero was not star-crossed lovers with Duo but might actually be connected to the female protagonist.

The argument is certainly applicable to a lot of people who watched the series later though and crapped on Relena's character because missing the point on multiple occasions has become an Olympic discipline rather than actually paying attention to what is shown.

I mean, I get that most people let preconceptions and media tradition sway their interpretation (like Relena having a crush on the mysterious new guy at school being the reason she follows Heero to the harbor when the series itself gives plenty of hints she's doing it because Heero is shady af and she's suspicious of him) but when they then form a negative opinion on Wing that is completely baseless because they didn't understand plot points, it destroys their argument and makes them look silly. Especially when it is coupled with an air of superiority.

You wanna rip Gundam Wing to shreds? Go right ahead, bro, just please put some effort into it.

Contrast with Gundam Pilots: Relena's character was often juxtaposed with the more action-driven and complex Gundam pilots. Her early interactions with characters like Heero Yuy, who were dedicated to their mission and often displayed little emotion, created a perception that she was a hindrance to their objectives.

Oh my goodness, I have actually seen this argument in the wild. I had once gone through hate sites to compile a list of accusations people threw at Relena back in the rowdy days of Gundam Wing to compare to more recent takes (spoiler: not much has changed) and I came across stuff along the lines of Relena "getting in the way of everyone's missions, creating problems for Noin, Milliardo and the others and endangering them."

ChatGPT, you impress me with your blanket statements going in the right direction.

I take issue with "more action-driven and complex" though. Compared to Relena's complexity most Gundam pilots are as flat as a pancake. They all have their depth, mind you, but Relena has waaaay more stuff happening and a lot more character development.

Initial Helplessness: In the early episodes, Relena found herself in vulnerable situations and required rescue by the Gundam pilots. This portrayal of her as helpless or in need of saving added to the negative perception.

I guess we're back in fanfic land. Unless AI means the Cinq arc, but that's the late middle of the show and is a little more complicated than just that.

Shift in Character Development: Over time, Relena's character undergoes significant development. She evolves from a seemingly naive girl into a strong and independent character. Her journey towards becoming a more capable and determined individual was not immediately evident to some viewers who formed their opinions early in the series.

...This doesn't even make sense, neither in the context of the show nor as a general statement.

It is true that a lot of people like to form an early opinion of Relena they don't part with no matter how far into the show they get. In many cases it's a decidedly negative one and that colors their perspective and ruins their enjoyment of the show, especially during the Cinq arc because that one is all about Relena and I have seen people scream for those episodes to end during their watch. Which, not gonna lie, amused me since she's the female protagonist so it's a given she'd get a lot of screentime.

The main problem with the Cinq arc though is that many don't recognize Relena's genius in how she handled the whole situation. The Cinq arc isn't just Relena preaching pacifism to the world at the most inopportune time where Romefeller is razing cities to the ground with Mobile Dolls. It's a political move that presents an alternative to Romefeller who claim that peace can only be achieved through them and their military presence. Cue a bunch of pacifists showing up.

Cinq's fall was not a loss per se. Relena surrendered publicly, with the whole world watching, especially the colonies who manufactured Mobile Dolls for Romefeller at the time. You think following that Dermail made Relena Romefeller's head representative for funsies? She had backed him into a corner. He had lost public support, the peaceful colonies had witnessed what they had contributed to and even people inside Romefeller were starting to grumble about him. He was scrambling for damage control, forcing Relena's hand and desperate to build Libra to have a giant space laser that will keep people in line should they not obey him.

Crap later hits the fan for him when Relena turns the tables on him and the colonists take control of Libra.

Complex Morality: Relena's pacifist stance and commitment to peace are central to her character. Her ideological beliefs sometimes clashed with the actions of the Gundam pilots, leading to a moral dilemma in the story. Some fans may have initially disliked her character due to this moral tension.

Such a pacifist.

Different Expectations: "Gundam Wing" is part of the wider "Gundam" franchise, known for its complex political and philosophical themes. Some fans may have had expectations for a more traditional mecha anime and found Relena's character and her focus on diplomacy and peace less appealing in comparison.

If this is AI talk for UC fans crapping on Relena because she isn't Sayla Mass and doesn't pilot anything then it's weird. By now there have been so many iterations of Gundam shows with the "princess" character not piloting a mobile suit (Relena, Kihel, Lacus, Marina, etc.) that no one watching Wing for the first time expects Relena to do so. Expectations for a mecha anime? Even watching The Vision of Escaflowne I never expected Hitomi to hop into a guymelef.

AI, what are you on?

Character Growth: As the series progresses, Relena's character becomes more relatable and her determination to create a peaceful world resonates with viewers. However, this character development took time to manifest and was not immediately evident in the early episodes.

You said that already. It didn't make sense the first time and it's not making sense now either. Who expects full character development in the first two episodes? ò_ô

It's important to note that over time, many fans came to appreciate Relena's character for her growth, complexity, and her role in exploring the series' themes of war, peace, and morality. She went from being disliked by some in the early episodes to becoming a more well-rounded and respected character by the end of the series. Viewer opinions about characters can often change as the story unfolds and characters undergo development.

Save the preaching.

The rest is correct mostly though. There are many out there who hated Relena when they first saw the show but found her tolerable to actually badass on a second rewatch after a couple of years had passed. It wasn't the end of the series though that made most people like her but Endless Waltz instead.

You still get an F for not mentioned rabid shippers at all, AI. That crap was an actual problem in this fandom. Thank Goodness that's over.

#gundam wing #relena peacecraft #relena darlian #this almost veers into polemic #which is needless in this fandom since most fans are adults so there is no drama here #usually I also don't go looking for 20 year old fights #but I was really curious to see if AI had been fed the utter crap show that had been early GW fandom #apparently not

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wirewitchviolet · 1 year ago

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That thing where bigots accuse trans people of things and then when pressed for examples name people who aren't trans.

The other day I had some random youtube video going in the background because I needed background noise and I don't have TV or a radio, and someone got into an aside about one Jimmy Savile. That name rang a bell, because oh yeah, that's that name that TERFs are always incoherently shouting. I had never heard this name in any other context before (this may be surprising to British people but for real nobody in the vast world outside your tiny bigot-ridden island has heard of ANY of your celebrities outside of like, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Monty Python, Mr. Bean, and the leads from Doctor Who in 1980 and 2008, plus some people who got famous on American TV) so I started paying attention, but the person talking was kind of talking around the subject. So then I looked him up on wikipedia, and first of all, yikes, but also yeah this guy doesn't have the slightest thing to do with trans people, so what the hell?

See to hear TERFs tell it, the world was all sunshine and rainbows forever until the ever-moving target of "just a few years ago" when trans people suddenly started existing and you can't trust them, especially around kids, and then, yeah, they incoherently shout "Jimmy Savile!" Every so often one will be in an interview or something and not just shouting slurs at you in an unmoderated forum and there'll be some followup where they mutter about having absolutely no idea and being totally shocked but again like, none of that holds up? Trans people have been around for the entirety of human history and never actually caused any problems of any sort for anyone, this creep people claim to have had no idea he was a creep until after he died in 2011 had songs (plural!) on the radio about his well-known to anyone who ever interacted with him serial sexual assaults on children as far back as the the mid-1980s, and the particular TERF I most often trying to make some sort of connection here absolutely knew I was trans back when he was apparently trying to get into my pants in 2014, well after they I guess started scrubbing this creep's names off buildings and apparently before trans people existed according their weird sliding timeline.

Being, apparently, quite a few years older than all recorded human history, I also remember that bit where before really going all in on "corrupting our innocent children" BS and dropping other weird angles, there was this desperate flailing about where trans women were like, using our vile shapeshifting powers to sneak into locker rooms and punch people or whatever? In particular, I'm recalling the bit where it first became apparent to the last few hold outs that Rowling's an unhinged bigot, and some of those people had the presence of mind to ask her WTF it was she had against trans people anyway. To which Rowling responded with this non-sequitur about her ex-husband being a violent abuser. I remember at the time a lot of people were surprised, because they had no idea that Rowling's ex was trans. But see, people had no idea about that, because it's not at all true. Like the next day someone dug up the ex in question and asked him, "hey, are you actually a woman or something?" and he responded with a rather confused no.

And like, there's SOME logic to responding to the question "why are you making unfounded claims about a whole group of people being violent?" with "oh I know this person who's violent and I hate him," there's just this unspoken "and I feel like that's a pretty universal reaction, so being violent struck me as a good thing to claim about anyone I want people to hate," ditto with the CSA stuff, but it can't just be rational people with any clue what they're talking about like me who see these totally unrelated claims and go "OK wait though. If trans people are guilty of all these horrible evil things, why is it you literally don't seem to be able to name a single one, and keep just bringing up people who aren't trans?" Happens with sports too! They'll shout about trans people being super athletes and then when they can't actually find examples they point at random cis athletes.

I don't really have a larger point here, just, you know, it's a weird freaking tactic, and people don't call it out the way they should. So I guess I'll just awkwardly transition into begging for money again.

Patreon link.

#terfs #baseless accusations #I feel like I should be more specific here but the whole point is inventing an overlap between innocent people and awfulness

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carmillatism · 1 year ago

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you’ve already sort of shown the relationship brian has with religion, but i’m curious about your take on how he felt about galahad considering the whole “preacher” vibe. if we’re moving forwards with the complicated (and negative) relationship he has with religion then how does that translate to how he interacted with galahad? or was is more of a “large passing of time” thing so it wasnt as impactful?

sorry just have DBB thoughts again,,,

oh!!! i love that question a lot! thank u for asking. i was actually just thinking about this, what with my backstory fic about brian. i have many thoughts on this, so i'll set some of my basic thoughts up first and then answer the question once the context is set!

i think hnoc happens by the time carmilla is airlocked (after that second-ish but canon big one where who killed dr. carmilla comes from (i say second cause of a line jonny says in the homesick live, but that's not important here)) and tim, raph, and marius have joined. not entirely sure if this is after or before dr. carmilla comes back (what with her showing up in dr. pilchard with all nine of them), but i lean towards after (which i think this would be after she's kicked out again).

i say all this to explain the fact that i think brian has done a shit ton of healing from when he first joined, so he's definitely a lot better with not judging himself, healing from religious trauma, and working on being more assertive.

i also believe that brian doesn't actually have prophetic powers, at least not to the extent that characters like to bring up. i think he just has good pattern recognition and predicts things well (this leads into ideas of how people will blow up (lie about) people's fame in history and present time as a way of meeting their own ends. basically, i think brian has no part in these rumors, and people just spread it cause he can never escape the false accusations (i autism-code him no matter what apparently /lh)).

this all to say that brian probably found fort galfridian interesting and went down to check it out (it kind of reminded him of the settlement he stayed on in his backstory. his feelings are complicated about it). he goes down there, kind of chilling in the chaos, and then he comes across galahad and i think his first reaction when he sees galahad is "holy shit holy fuck holy-" and he just kind of spirals. cause yeah, he's doing better, but he also does remind him of one of his worst moments, so he may lose it a bit.

this could have maybe led to him being hung in the first place? he could have tried to question galahad's teachings because he worried galahad was using and lying to fort galfridian's people like the priest once did. this obviously causes unrest due to people liking galahad and not the outsider, so he's hung (this is just speculation i've sort of come up with on the spot!). when brian doesn't die from the hanging and continues to not die, the people are like "what the fuck". brian's pissed, and when he's pissed he says some ominous shit (but there is a place deep within him that does want to help the people), so they think he's a prophet and hang him by his ankle.

brian, who's like "well, this is interesting" sticks around cause it's wild, he's invested, and the mechs are a million light years away. he still doesn't trust galahad, however, galahad starts to talk with him, really about anything, a lot cause he finds brian interesting and because he feels bad for trying to kill this guy who was actually a prophet (probably thinks he's sent from god).

as he talks to brian, brian starts to have a change in judgment. he doesn't trust him all that much still, but he begins to realize that he didn't lead with an open mind and that maybe it would be okay to hear him out. he sees that galahad cares deeply about what he does and fully believes what he says to be true. brian is still weary on religion (especially organized ones) as a whole, but he does start to believe that what galahad is doing is better than he first thought. he finds company in galahad and other townspeople and really starts to care about them (and he's had a fucking headache for like a century now. wonderful).

and then the events of the album start to happen. when you're a hanged man in the center of town (idk if that's canon but it is now /lh), you hear a lot of shit: gossip, folklore, daily occurences. brian starts to catalog and connect this info he gathers (he's bored and a scientist; what more could he want?). a bigger picture starts to dawn on him, so he shares the info with the people who come to him (and who he seeks out). he wants to help galahad and tells him about the grail. he hopes that galahad will take the news well, but his reaction worries him, and he begins to regret what he said.

he hears later on about what galahad is doing and what he's saying, and he grows even more worried, seeing parallels between his past and the beliefs galahad begins to hold. brian thinks he's in too deep and tries to stop him, but that doesn't work out. he feels extremely guilty when he hears about galahad's death, and spirals a bit into blaming himself and having thoughts about his past that aren't the best. then he's in a sun for a century, and a good amount of his healing goes out the window. (but at least those lines of healing are still carved into his mind so it will be easier to find those routes and get himself back to healthy a lot faster than it did before (using a metaphor here that i heard and like with how it can be easier to heal once more if those paths of healing are there, fresh, and easy to reach. i was actually told about the opposite, which is why it's so easy to fall back into anxiety or other cycles of negative thinking)).

anyway... i am not one for brevity, apparently (no one is surprised). haven't thought this much about any of the albums before lmao (i usually focus on the mechs themselves abdknkd). but this is quite a fun concept to think about. i also like the idea that galahad is absolutely smitten with brian. it's just really fucking funny to me lmao. i also like to think that brian is just along for the ride whenever it comes ot galahad like, okay, you go you crazy guy.

also, sorry for any discrepancies between this and hnoc canon, i have not faithfully inscribed the entire album and it's info into my mind with long-lasting ink /lh.

thank you for the question, and don't worry! i love your questions and adore that you find my thoughts and writing so interesting and cool! it means the world to me. anyway, thank you again!

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red-hibiscus · 5 months ago

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180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us episode 1 analysis

No analysis. I just wanna put it out there that is indeed the accurate depiction of stubborn political son and a-political parent.

Mol: In, don't you dare seduce my son with your booze. My son is a good kid. He doesn't drink nor smoke. Wang: How can I drink when the Great Sasivimol hogs all the booze? But today I'm willing to make an exception for you?

Pretty much from the get-go we see that Mol is generally trying to hold back Wang. She wants him to be her perfect son, despite the relaxed friend-like nature of their mother-son relationship. Wang is an adult and him drinking wouldn't be weird, he says so himself. However Mol tells In to not "seduce" him with booze. Which could also be foreshadowing.

Interestingly, if I remember correctly, Wang actually isn't interested in alcohol. He doesn't actually want it, this is just him being stubborn and rebellious as always. I think it's also important to note that Mol is described as someone who often drinks, despite saying her husband dying from drinking.

In: Thats even worse. It shows you're not willing to decide. Let me decide for you then. A glass of warm milk should do Mol: Good. Drink your milk. Kids these days need someone like you to put them in their place.

Mol basically wants In to “tame” Wang. Also, “let me decide for you” is pretty much what everyone is doing to Wang, especially his mother. People are deciding what Wang should be, what he should do. That conversation was about Wang not deciding on what kind of alcohol he wants and In, channeling his inner teacher, jokingly giving him an F. However within context, Wang's storyline is about him as a youth/young adult, being controlled by his mother/society.

In: The other professors accused me of being too soft on the students. Even though I was only being impartial Wang: But doesn't that mean you weren't willing to decide either?

Well this is foreshadowing. Later we learn that a big chunk of Inn's character is his inability to choose, and when he does choose, it's a choice made out of fear and his wish to run away. He is afraid to decide and stand up for himself so he runs away. Something that Wang will never do.

Mol: He is exactly like his father. In: But I think he takes after you. Mol: Really? I mean, we're both stubborn. But at least I'm open about it. He keeps everything to himself just like his father. That's what I don't get about him. That's what I didn't get about his father.

We start with the Wang =(?) Siam. Which is more foreshadowing to all the Wang | Siam parallels scattered throughout the show. Wang is secretive for the same reasons Siam was secretive. Mol wants truth, but she cannot handle it. She says she doesn't get it, but later we do see that she suspects and understands more than she lets on. Siam kept everything to himself because he was pushed to. He didn't want to harm Mol either. Similarly Wang knows him mother well. He knows how far is too far. He also knows that he's her everything and despite his frustration with her, he still loves her as his mother.

Also right after that short conversation In changes the subject, running away again.

Oh but Mol that's exactly what he didn't want. He was actively avoiding talking to Siam, and for the sake of Mol too. At least that was his excuse. Now by the time he went abroad he did want to hear the phone ring, but it was too late, and it's not like In would take the initiative.

This is interesting because in theory yes, in actuality only partially. If Mol's happiness was the only thing on his mind he probably would've seen that Siam and Mol were not good for each other. At the very least he wouldn't have left them. Initially yes it was for Mol's sake. Mol liked Siam so In helped her get connected to him. But no ultimately he was doing it as a (very damaging) self-defense mechanism.

Wang: It's just that I want to travel... In: from the north pole to its southern counterpart. Wang: And learn of all the things I never got to know. In: and just like that the world is in your hands

The way Wang looked at In is liked something clicked. He realized he found someone he could actually talk to about his interests. He certainly can't with his mother. In understands the meaning of the globe because it was his and Siam's dream originally, and was later passed down to Wang.

Reading into it, but this could possibly be because In sees Siam in Wang, at least partially. Or it could be because In only knew of Wang as a baby and they spent such a long time apart. Plus Wang's way of speaking/interests. They're more in line with an academic.

#please comment any other ideas and analysis #180 degree longtitude passes through us the series #180 degree longitude passes through us #bl series #thai bl #lgbt #gay #asian lgbtq dramas

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jitterbugjive · 1 year ago

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Oh-- God, that's wild. And a lot more complicated than I thought. D: I do remember her publicly calling you out years ago, I can't remember what for (maybe it was vaguing, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't about any of this.) Felt more like a personal spat where she was offended/her feelings were hurt. ): I do hope she gets the help she needs, and you still come out of this okay. None of that relates to who you are now as a content creator.

It was about a few things, like the Derpy Blog incident, and claiming that I taught her to act like a sociopath because a long time ago she came to me asking about her lack of emotional empathy and need to manipulate others and in my naivete I suggested perhaps sociopathy could explain it. Because even I myself at the time was dealing with similar feelings and thought I might have been a sociopath because of it. This was before therapy and dealing with my trauma and realizing it wasn't sociopathy, but in fact dissociation. And when I did suggest it, I tried my best to give her tools to practice empathy and kindness, but she blames me for all the wrong and harm she's done to people because to her, my suggesting she had sociopathy was permission for her to act like a sociopath.

I struggled with the guilt of this for a while but my therapist told me no one can 'teach' someone to become a sociopath, that's not how that works. She chose to act that way on her own because she took something I said and ran with it, and I didn't give her enough tools to counter those thoughts but that's not my fault because I didn't intend for things to happen the way they did. I really tried to provide advice that would help her function more like a proper, kind person, but she ignored that advice. I'm not blaming her either by the way, she was a kid, kids are dumb, they tend to latch on to dumb things and take them way out of context. She was at that age where kids like to be edgy so I'm sure the idea of being a sociopath was cool to her.

She also called me out on something I told her when I was in a psychotic state, which was me saying I based Slate off of her. That wasn't true either, and I tried to explain it to her that in that state I believed everyone's characters HAD to be based on someone real, no exception, and I felt the need to tell her Slate was based on her because he had just a couple of things in common with her and therefor "they were connected" and I "subconciously" used Slate as an experiment to better understand her.

Again, I explained this to her, I told her that I was not in my right mind, and I told her the three characters Slate was actually based on from the anime Monster. But she apparently chose to believe I was lying and that I HAD to have based slate on her because of how similar they were.

I have a screencap of a convo here where she admits that she had a habit of taking anything wrong she did and blaming it on me, and the last convo I had with her was about a friend she manipulated and targetted because she thought he was too nice and naive and needed to learn a lesson about life.

I never meant to make her feel like she was a bad person, I just wanted to know why she did it, why she hurt someone that badly and pitted people against him.

She ghosted me after this convo, and a few months later deleted my Bedeviled Derpy blog with a long post of accusations against me.

THEN after that did a callout twitter with one of her buddies.

It's just

I have been too scared to defend myself because I don't want to look like one of THOSE people, but I'm so tired of people looking at just one side of the story and not understanding all the stuff that's being left out or twisted to sound worse than it actually is.

I want the best for her, I do, but I don't think I deserved this much backlash. If she'd just talked to me we could have come to an understanding, I feel. But that's not how she does things. She'd sooner ghost then lash out than actually discuss things. She'd rather tear people apart to get back at them than come to an understanding. Maybe she's different now, but I doubt she'll ever let go of the fact that I'm her scapegoat for everything that was ever wrong with her.

#vent

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a-binary-choice · 2 years ago

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Just a recap of what we do know (links to proof at bottom):

Ever since the little girl started sexually harassing Ted under his pics on Insta and under his tweets people have been telling her or asking her not to do this and to please treat him with respect. Even if her age wasn't in her IG bio months ago it was clear she is very young, and it is definitely clear NOW.

2. How this all 'started'

He was mentioned on Tw multiple times in tweet replies that this girl is a MINOR and that she should stop this. He was active on Twitter liking tweets, the girl had responded to his tweet about the dentist 'I bet you go to lots of wild parties Ted'. He 'liked' this reply, so he saw her commenting suggestively again and showed her he LIKES her reply. It's been clear that him liking or replying to her comments (she commented 'be my munch' months ago and Ted replied 'oh my...') has encouraged her to keep at it, because she never stopped and she has been saying to ppl, 'he thinks I'm funny, he always likes my replies'.

3. After he liked her reply about the wild parties he started to follow her. Mind you, he knew this 15 y/o girl had been posting half naked pics of herself on her public twitter, because he followed her almost right after a couple ppl notified him. Ppl say he doesn't have time to check everything... He is very active on socials, he even liked an older pic by a 22 y/o female fan, proving he def scrolls down on twitter accounts, because he had to scroll down several tweets to get to the pic he liked.

4. People are now saying some proof of DMs someone spread is fake (it was an edit the girl made, we weren't aware this was fake). Okay, that's fair. But let's not get side tracked. The real DMs will never be shared. We do know the girl showed off to her friends on TikTok saying he followed her (which we know is true because we can see it's true) and that he initiated contact by saying 'Why, hello [name redacted]', which sounds flirty and inappropriate. People are calling the girl a liar. But what if she's not lying about him DMing her now that he's following her? Would it be okay then? Even in a non sexual context it's inappropriate for a 57 y/o man to be social media friends with a 15 y/o girl, and we've already established there's a sexual context from her side at least, because it's been documented. Teachers get fired for stuff like this, because of the power imbalance.

5. If you're accused of something like this, what would you do if you were innocent? Would you stay quiet, waiting for it to blow over? Or would you do anything to show you haven't been doing anything illegal? What seems icky to me is that the girl has locked her Tw, so if Ted likes a lewd pic, no one would know. And if there's nothing disturbing or illegal going on, why are her Tw and IG profiles private and has she deleted her entire TikTok acc?

This is not drama, it turned into that because people launched personal attacks, I have been guilty of that as well. I won't anymore because that is not what this is about. This is about a minor being at risk OR a celeb nearly ruining his whole career because he didn't just tell the girl to stop, didn't just block the girl, but instead decided it would be smart to follow her and most probably DM her, initiating contact with a 15 y/o.

#ted raimi #the contedversy 2023 #just ted raimi things #the quarry #travis hackett #supermassive games #the contedversy 2022

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blapis-blazuli · 1 year ago

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I was originally gonna add this to the original post, but I wound up making this its own post. Oops? (Context for everyone else.)

I'm not at all surprised that you don't know who this character is, Disney pretty much never acknowledges the movie he's from. I've been trying to pin down where to start with him, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that would require me to explain the movie he's from, among other things. I will try to be somewhat coherent, but I make no promises.

So.

In 1995, the same year "Pocahontas" was released, someone pitched the idea for an animated supernatural Western movie where a timid cowboy confronts an undead cattle rustler. The original idea was well-received, so they started working on it. This movie was called "Sweating Bullets."

Except it didn't happen.

Okay, that's not entirely true: what happened was that it went through several changes from its original pitch to the final product. Unlike the detailed account of how "Kingdom of the Sun" eventually became "The Emperor's New Groove," I haven't found as much information as to why this changed so drastically. (Hell, I found out about all this completely by accident.) The best I can find is a mention of the inclusion of a baby longhorn calf named Bullets who wants to be more like a horse, and then sometime later someone else suggested the protagonists be three cows out to save their farm.

So "Sweating Bullets" eventually morphed into "Home on the Range."

*sigh*

When someone claims animation is only for children, this is the kind of film that I imagine they're thinking of. This came out during "Disney's Second Dark Age," and while it's not the worst animated theatrical movie they've made... it ain't good. I'm struggling to think of what exactly about it doesn't work, because there's quite a bit, and the more I try to focus on just one thing to mention the messier my thought process gets. However, unlike some people (coughdougwalkercough), I won't accuse the people behind making this film of not caring or putting no effort into this. I don't think the overall end result is good, but I will not deny that work was put into creating it.

While I'm at it, let's get this out of the way: this movie's reputation as "the 2D film that killed 2D films in the United States" is inaccurate. Disney was already planning on going from 2D to 3D films before this movie was released, and this was a convenient target to pin the blame on. This common misconception probably isn't helped by Disney doing what it does with most of its flops by avoiding mentioning this movie at all ever. (Outside of having it available on Disney Plus? To... I don't know, keep people from pirating one of their critically panned flops?)

I don't have a high opinion of the movie itself, but there is one thing I enjoy about it.

This is Alameda Slim. He's the villain. He's an awful man. I love him.

Slim was set to be the undead antagonist way back when this was "Sweating Bullets," and his backstory was that he died via being trampled to death by a stampeding herd of cattle. However, that changed because someone at Disney deemed it to be "too dark" and that they'd have to show blood should they go with that. (That and it'd give them at least a PG rating... which the final movie ended up getting anyway.) Keep in mind that the original pitch was made a year after the release of "The Lion King," where Mufasa fell off a cliff and was trampled by wildebeests, a similar death that showed little if any blood, so I call bull on that excuse (pun intended).

It's hard for me to determine when they made other changes to his character between the original pitch and the final product because, again, I've not found much info on the production. Given one of the old proposed posters, it seems like one aspect of his character has been there back when it was titled "Sweating Bullets."

Oh, did I mention that his yodeling can hypnotize cattle?

(Here's where I'd usually put a YT video of at least the audio of his villain song, but I don't want to accidentally get any YouTube channels in trouble with Disney. I'll say this: when I mentioned that there was a 2004 movie with more fat jokes about the villain in one song than there were in the entirety of Spider-Man 2? This is the song I meant.)

Fun fact: Slim's villain song required three vocalists - his voice actor for the speaking/singing, one professional yodeler for the higher notes, and another for the lower ones. That might be the single most impressive thing about the movie to me. (Another fun fact: if you listen to this dubbed in another language, odds are likely that the longer yodeling sequence of the song will be from the Latin-Spanish dub done in Mexico, all performed by one man.) Also, the lyricist for his song (and the rest in the movie)? He's the same lyricist for Disney's Tangled. It's crazy to me that Mother Gothel's villain songs were written by the same guy who gave us a yodeling cowboy villain song. (And "Love Never Dies," the sequel to Webber's Phantom of the Opera, but LND is a whole other type of mess.)

As you can probably tell from that alone, Slim is meant to be more of a comedic villain than a serious one, which was a bit of a departure from most other Disney movie villains around that time. That's not to say he can't be threatening, as he's very strong and has a pretty bad temper, a combination you don't want to be on the wrong end of (something his three nephews know all too well). His deal is that he disguises himself and buys up all the land owned by the people whose cattle he's stolen and sold off, his way of getting revenge on all the ranchers who fired him for not appreciating his yodeling talents. This revenge scheme extends to smaller places he's never been to, such as the home of two of the main protagonists.

He ends up getting defeated by a group of farm animals, including three piglets and several baby chickens.

No, I'm not kidding. Like, imagine the scene where Scuttle and those sea creatures mess with Ursula during the wedding in The Little Mermaid, but if she did nothing after Ariel got her voice back. Not a very exciting end for a villain, is it?

Despite his pretty pathetic defeat, there's something about Slim I just can't help but enjoy. I'm upset that Disney squandered the opportunity to add a literal ghost rider to their villain roster, but I still found him to be my favorite thing about the movie.

I think I might like him because he's got a couple things in common with other villains I've become fond of over the years. Ratigan's also a character with an ego who's out to gain power and has a noted temper, though he manages it better than Slim (up until that film's climax, anyway). Slim is also usually considered to be a more silly villain despite being behind some pretty horrible things like driving several people (and a colony of rabbits) out of their homes, which is kinda like how people see Eggman. And if I had a nickel for every time I've gotten attached to a greedy, egotistical, fat but agile, silly but also sorta threatening redheaded villain with the ability to control certain animals in an animated thing that came out in 2004, I'd have two nickels... Which isn't a lot, but it's weird how that also describes The Batman's take on The Penguin, right? Edit: My partner pointed out that he's got a couple things in common with Tamatoa too, namely both being in the "large, silly, and threatening" category as well as both having palette shifts during their villain songs and being a bit flashy. Felt like that was important enough to add here.

Also, Slim rides a bison named Junior. I know the idea behind it was likely "he's too big/fat to ride a normal horse," but considering how bison can be potentially dangerous, I just think that's kinda amazing.

In conclusion:

#Alameda Slim #long post #death mention #I've acquired more knowledge of this movie in the last few weeks than I ever expected to at any point in my life ever #did any of that make sense lol #big thank you to my partner for listening to me go on about this new interest of mine before anyone else #important edit because my partner is a genius holy shit

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tobiasdrake · 2 years ago

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So, my opinion on Wanda (if you don't mind hearing it)...

If we're going to condemn Wanda and say she needs to be punished for what she did, should we not hold characters like Tony Stark to the same standard for being such a huge part of the global war machine that directly caused a significant part of Wanda's own trauma, or for accidentally causing the Ultron incident due to his own trauma motivating him to try and protect the world through his obviously-a-bad-idea technology? What of Banner, who arguably could have prevented a lot of the damage the Hulk did if he just gave himself up to the military to be experimented on instead of fighting for his right to exist freely? Or Clint's Ronin phase after the Snap? Even Wanda volunteering to be experimented on by Hydra, she was a young traumatized person who was exploited, as is typical of military and terrorist organizations to do. She most certainly had agency in that decision and killing out of revenge isn't exactly good, let alone all the collateral, but if we argue that Wanda deserves punishment for the harm she has done, then is she also not justified in wanting to punish Stark and others complicit in the atrocities she's suffered where she and her family were the collateral?

And complicating matters is that due to her powers, Wanda having a breakdown has a greater impact than say, if I went a little crazy in my grief. Her simply lashing out has huge consequences because she has reality-warping abilities that are downright instinctual for her to use. It's kinda a problem a fantastical world of super-powered people would have to deal with. How do you deal with people in crisis who normally would have a small, undirected impact when they lash out, but now have to actively restrain themselves from causing massive damage with careless use of their laser eyes or magic? Two individuals could have the exact same character, the exact same reaction, and cause vastly different amounts of harm. If Wanda didn't have her powers, she simply would not have been capable of what she did.

(And, more practically, how do you implement our current carceral justice system on someone with powers without breaking several dozen human rights laws like with the RAFT? More than ever, crime reduction, rehabilitation and restorative justice would become the only practical way of dealing with the majority of powered individuals like Wanda long-term because A) restraining them is hard, and B) the most important goal, which is or should already true of most crime but especially when you're dealing with someone who could blow up a city, is to prevent them from re-offending which punitive justice is hardly good at)

Which is basically a long way of saying Wanda did some bad things, but punishing her when she clearly wants to just heal and not hurt people doesn't make much sense, especially in the more fantastical context of the MCU. I also find a lot of the people who want her to "face consequences" to be a little... strange about it? It's one thing to complain about a character being let off the hook for what they did with only a slap on the wrist and seeing them as given undeserved sympathy, but a lot of people seem to really want her to just suffer in a way they don't with other MCU characters who've done similar stuff.

Oh, absolutely, Tony has a lot to answer for that the franchise just lets him skate for. Civil War, the movie that pointedly refuses to talk about Johannesburg, also pointedly refuses to talk about Tony's culpability in making Ultron. It never comes up.

It condemns the Avengers for being too careless with collateral damage while fighting Ultron - A wildly hollow accusation for anyone who actually saw the third act of that film. It accuses them of destroying Sokovia through their careless disregard for civilian lives. But the fact that they, and specifically Tony and Hulk, made Ultron? Never comes up.

And I would be the last person to defend Clint's Ronin phase. The fact that he's a serial mass-murderer who gets to just retire to a happy family is something I find intensely bothersome, which greatly affected my enjoyment of him moving forward. That's going to come up when we get to Hawkeye.

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roalinda · 1 year ago

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ok this is not at all in defence of the nice one james line cause i also think it’s completely stupid and sirius would never mistake harry for james, but what if it was supposed to be like talking to james about harry? like telling james ‘you made a good thing here’? and not actually talking TO harry as james. but like talking to james’ spirit or his memory or … oh god….. through the veil. thoughts?

Hello anon,

Sorry it took me so long to answer, your ask reasoned into me re-reading the chapters in the OOTP and DH which I deemed necessary, so I could come up with a proper thing. ♡ also, I have been busy crying over Sirius as I was reading it last night, so I couldn't answer right away. 🙈

So, I'm more of a book person than a movie person, specially when it comes to Harry Potter series. The movies have so many misleading points, I don't even want to start on them.

The nice one thing actually exists in the book, but without the word James. It is specially directed to Harry.

"Nice one!" shouted Sirius, forcing Harry's head down as a pair of stunning spells flew toward them. ( HP and OOTP, chapter 35, page 803 )

and by reading the previous lines and their context, it's easy to conclude that Sirius is talking to Harry, specially since he continues with,

"Now I want you to get out of — "

Which he shows he knows what he is doing, who is he talking to and what is he fighting for. So, it's safe to say that accusing Sirius Black of having a adrift mind which confuses James and Harry, has no real root and evidence, if the audience want to lean on the movie.

Now to the veil and nice one, James! :

This is a simple description of the veil, apart from the details in the next paragraphs.

The archway was hung with a tattered black curtain or veil ( HP and OOTP, chapter 34, page 773 )

As we proceed, we learn that the veil is black and it flutters slightly without being touched. There are faint whispers behind it, ones that not everyone can hear. Harry and Luna hear them, Ginny and Neville are entranced by the veil and it seems that only Ron and Hermione are kind of safe.

Maybe the reason is that they have not met with the same level of grief or worse, coming face to face with death like the other four, each in their own right. Luna losing her mother, Ginny nearly killed by Voldemort in CS, Neville losing his parents to insanity and Harry, well, obvious is obvious.

Also here are two small details:

Still, the veil swayed gently, as though somebody had just passed through it. ( HP and OOTP, chapter 34, page 773)

This gives one the hope that maybe people can come out of the veil, even if they are not alive in foreshadowing, but then we have,

If Sirius was not reappearing out of that archway when Harry was yelling for him as though his life depended on it, the only possible explanation was that he could not come back… (HP and OOTP, chapter 36, page 808)

So, Sirius cannot come back until we see him in DH with the resurrection stone, which the aim is completely different and not related to this.

So, those were small selective facts. Ok? ok.

Now moving to my personal thoughts on James in the situation you said Sirius may have called his name and not a meta on the aspects of the veil. (which are different and the veil needs a long meta itself)

let us assume that the dead can watch the living from behind the veil. It's a black curtain, the living can't see what's hidden behind and if they try they fall in there and die. The serene swaying of the veil? Maybe it is the gaze of the dead at their loved ones from afterlife, using the veil like a window. The archway is a border between life and dead and the veil is the bridge. It is abstract, it can be seen as a window, a road or a simple door which is one-way.

He (Harry) had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing behind the veil on the other side of the archway. (HP and OOTP, chapter 34, page 773)

Grief has a huge impact on hearing things there or how one views the veil. I believe Sirius is one of the few characters who had never stopped grieving. Too many sad memories, accusations while being innocent, finding his boyfriend best friend's dead body, honestly, how much a man can take?

So, probably grief would let him hear the whispers too and as we read in the book, those whispers and the veil are entrancing, calming and beautiful.

The gently rippling veil intrigued him (Harry) ; he felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it. (HP and OOTP, chapter 34, page 774)

It goes without saying that Sirius was neither delusional or suicidal. He was a brave, clever and energetic man who was not content to sit at home while every one else were fighting ( in Dumbledore's words), he had risked everything to escape Azkaban, lived in caves, etc. Such man with such passion ( for whatever reason) cannot think about death while he has his godson trusted to him. I need to point this out here because a lot of people think Sirius was a suicidal man whose life was wrapped up in James and cared for his godson as James not as Harry.

So, here is the thought, he may have felt James' presence in that room, among those whispers and by the force of habit he said - nice one, James! - in the heat of the battle. They were very co-dependant after all. Maybe James used to use the same spell harry used in that Situation to have his back, who knows?

It's a movie thing , directors and producers were very focused on ruining his character anyway. 😭

What I am personally sure about ( well, it is my HC at least) , is that James was on the other side of the veil, ready to recieve Sirius, the two crying and laughing at the same time. (Excuse me for being weak for this HC , anon 🙈 )

Anyway, thank you for the ask ♡

#Prongsfoot #Prongsfoot asks #Sirius black #James potter #I ranted so much sorry nhfjkgrh

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