#critical tags applied

[galedekarios]

the way some ppl go out of their way to actively seek out appropriately tagged content to get upset about to the point of making several posts in a row abt it... it's like that guy on bike meme tbh

[trappedinafantasy37]

We did it guys! Minthara is in the top 100 most mentioned video game characters on Tumblr, sitting comfortably at rank 55!

With Astarion at rank 1 (cause of course), Gale at 5, Shadowheart at 6, Karlach at 8, Lae'zel at 9, Wyll at 12, Halsin at 16, Tav at 19, Gortash at 47, and The Dark Urge at 67. Baldur's Gate 3 is also the most talked about video game on this platform, as well as the 6th most talked about thing on all of Tumblr!

I wish Minthara was higher, but you know what, I'm happy she's on there at all! It is also interesting that she ranks higher than Durge and that Durge is that low on the list. It's also pretty interesting that there is such a discrepancy between Durge and Gortash as Durgetash is also the 67th most talked about ship on the platform. It is quite an achievement that our favorite drow is even on that list at all.

It is all just making me think back to some of the more dejecting AO3 statistics with Minthara almost being a blip, practically a statistical outlier in some ways. Even some insignificant side characters got more attention and adoration than her, or had numbers that would compare to her. But Tumblr is a much bigger platform than AO3, containing a much wider array of topics (including fanfics). So for Baldur's Gate 3 and Minthara to stand out that much is really saying something! Reading these statistics on Tumblr does go to show that one platform does not represent the entire fandom and that AO3 is only a piece of the picture.

[solrookera]

Solavellan's: stop shipping Solrook! Blah blah blah conform to my tastes and world state/canon interpretation!

Me:

[ninadove]

So. There’s this show I really hate.

I didn’t even want to watch it, but I was forced to sit through literally all of it because my parents liked it for some reason that completely eludes me. Not only is the plot catastrophically bad and the characters inconsistent — it’s also very, very misogynistic in essence. Just thinking about it now makes me want to chew on the writing team’s bones.

I genuinely have nothing good to say about this show.

So. Do you know how many posts I uploaded to the corresponding tags?

ZERO (0)

Because there’s no point in spending energy on a thing I hate so passionately, and even less in ruining it for other people.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s OK to point out irregularities in writing, and to talk about specific aspects of a story that upset you. But uploading dozens of posts about how you Hate The Thing, Analysing The Thing Is Pointless, Everyone Who Worked On The Thing Is Stupid, and Everyone Who Loves The Thing Is Delusional, is maybe not the genius take you think it is.

It doesn’t make you smarter than everyone else. It just makes you boring.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

i don't understand the point of killing off angella, having glimmer struggle with intense grief and emotional turmoil, and driving a wedge between adora and glimmer.. if none of it was ever going to be resolved properly.

the same glimmer who was so distraught about her mother's death that she resolved to do anything to bring the horde down is suddenly chilling with the person who killed her mother. they never talk about it, catra never apologizes, they act as if it never happened.

and what happened between adora and glimmer doesn't matter anymore. their conflict was one of the main elements in s4, since they had different goals and people were depending on them, and it was hard to keep a clear mind through all that. yet it's so easily resolved in s5 and somehow, bow is more upset at glimmer than adora is.

it's like.. if you don't know how to resolve a serious plotline, why write it in the first place? why try to act as if your show is so deep and complex, when you're simply not capable of addressing those topics responsibly?

[avichor]

many thoughts about vampires and how consuming their media with a strict, humanistic moral lens defeats the purpose

[warcats-cat]

Man remember when Sanders Sides was silly and fun and not all encompassing overly dramatic and took four *years* to make one episode? And we had faith that the creator wasn't just a money grabbing asshole stealing from his patrons his artists and his fans at large?

Good times.

[ittybittyremy]

I really hate the use of the word "hypocrite" in the CR fandom because it doesn't let people appreciate the nuances of the characters/situations. This is not to say that the characters don't have their hypocritical moments. I just think there are people who slap the word on a character and call it a day, not even bothering to try to understand it.

I have more to say but TLDR: Hypocrisy is a fact but it feels like an insult because it implies that there is no reason that the contrast of ideas exists.

You won't like to hear this but everybody (including you) is/will be a hypocrite at some point. There are many cases of this, some more severe than others.

As a small example, I hate the sound of other people clicking their pens repeatedly but I click my pen repeatedly all the time. Is that hypocritical? Yes! You could slap that label call it that and call it a day and it wouldn't be technically wrong. However, you could also figure out why these contrasts exist. In my case, my thing with noises has to do with control. I don't mind my pen clicking because I can choose the tempo and decide when to stop it. But others make that exact same noise, I can't control it and I don't know when it'll stop.

Hypocrisy is a fact but it feels like an insult because it implies that there is no reason that the contrast of ideas exists.

This is not meant to say that all hypocrisy makes sense or has reason. Reasonless hypocrisy is one of the foundations of prejudice/discrimination but that's a whole other conversation.

There will also be reasons of hypocrisies existing that you disagree with. However, just because you disagree with the reason doesn't mean that the reason does not exist.

Back to Critical Role

I made this post because of people's reactions to Ashton regarding their views on the gods versus the primordials. During the CR Cooldown, the cast calls Asthon out for their hypocrisy of their views on the gods versus the titans. This is what Taliesin says about it:

"It's the difference between the feeling of being small in front of someone rather than being small in front of everything. Is really what happened, which is instead of having the smallness and raging at the big person, it was 'I'm in the middle of this.' [Asthon] didn't feel separated from it... It was more feeling the place in the cosmos, rather than actual people going 'oh it's you' and you're like 'fuck'."

Of course, you can understand Ashton’s hypocrisy and disagree with the reasoning. That's fine, as long as you see their reasons and acknowledge that they exist. It may not make sense to you but it makes sense to the character.

[oldmanyaoi-jpeg]

i haven't played this game, don't plan to, and am not part of the fandom, but from the secondhand fandom poisoning i'm getting it just seems like everyone is doing this i guess

[windcarvedlyre]

I don't want comments text limit...

Speaking of Yamada, some people complain about people disliking him, but he is entirely made to be a joke from his appearance being really exaggerated to purposefully making his dialogue seem creepy or obnoxious (not sure if that is the right word)

I could see likable things in him, but everything is exaggerated to a point that it feels hard to like him for me? I mean, you aren't supposed to think he's cool, that's for sure. I understand having joke characters, but I do wish he'd been treated just a little more seriously because it would've been more enjoyable that way, at least in my personal opinion.

I definitely liked him more than when I was a preteen, though lol.. He still weirded me out a little with certain dialogues.

Also, my friend loved Kiyotaka, so there was a bit of a grudge when we played, hehshs...

I feel you, I need to stop spamming people's replies haha

I'm unfamiliar with any discourse around him- hope I'm not wading into anything heated, nothing below is meant to police anyone or defend fatphobia, etc- but yeah agreed :(

The THH playthrough I'm doing with friends just reached his death and I think early Yamada is endearing and has surprisingly great lines about art. The 2d stuff is there but it isn't that bad; anyone with blorbos would be hypocritical to judge him for it. And his stupid beef with Fukawa was fun. If he stayed like that I'd love him, and I like fanworks that draw from those traits and explore what could have been.

But the game progresses and he gets more and more inappropriate about women. He still opposes actually SAing someone- Celeste used that to turn him against Ishimaru- but he repeatedly made creepy remarks unprompted, took part in the bathhouse scene enthusiastically*, and latched onto Alter Ego so hard as a potential 2D waifu that he misgendered him** repeatedly.

Characters can have hidden depths, wasted potential, et cetera, but the canon or surface level version of the character is still them. If they're an unpleasant person and/or written badly, even if bigotry contributed to that, I don't think people have to engage with a better version instead of what canon presents. Like, I'm obsessed with Komaeda's potential for character development and I think DR has an ableism problem which affects how he was handled; that doesn't mean everyone has to like him and engage with deep analyses imo. We should just be mindful of issues with the source and avoid blindly pushing caricatures even further.

*To be fair Kodaka also made Naegi and Hagakure drink disrespect women juice for that scene, so it would be fair to pretend that isn't canon. It feels wildly OOC for Naegi, and Hagakure wasn't the best person either but I don't think he's 'spy on naked teens as a 20yo' bad.

**Obviously not starting Chihiro gender discourse here, but when everyone else was he/himing Alter Ego and AE wasn't disputing that it was creepy of Yamada to she/her AE just because he was... cute and 2D, I guess? Regardless of where people stand, he wasn't doing that to be a trans ally :/

[vault--of--amber]

Hello fandom artist. In front of you is a male character, who presents himself in a somewhat flamboyant and excitable manner and actively flirts with many characters of different genders. You have an infinite amount of time to draw this character without making him a hazbin hotel style twink. If you fail every single surface in your house will be plastered over with thousands of copies of Hot Yaoi Base, the eye colour of the smaller man adjusted accordingly to the character in question. You may begin.

[osamucide]

if this bothers anyone they can kindly feel free to leave or ignore it or whatever but can we stop flooding the x reader tags with half-baked thinkpieces on why people should or shouldn’t do whatever with their writing. every other post is “you shouldn’t romanticize [x]” “you’re problematic if you do [x]” “stop writing about [x]” “[x] is gross and if you write about it kill yourself” how about if you don’t like certain content you heed the content warnings, block the tags, don’t interact with it, so on and so forth. of course part of our responsibility as writers, especially ones dealing with sensitive topics, is to label and tag our works appropriately but let’s be real—i hardly see any writers (at least within the bsd fandom) who don’t make it abundantly clear what they do/do not write about, interact with, or tolerate. wait until you find out how much fucked up shit happens in real life and how much some person on the internet coping with their trauma by writing self insert fanfiction about a cartoon character doesn’t fucking correlate to the perpetuation of that fucked up shit at all. it doesn’t even have to be that serious. people are going to write and read the content they want and they’re allowed to and you spilling your complaints all over the x reader tags “to boost attention” isn’t gonna change that. if you don’t like something ignore, unfollow, block, mind your own business. it’s actually super easy

[dtvhomeofhappiness]

Rocky horror is like if you got an advent calendar and each day you got a puzzle piece. you have no clue what the picture is going to be, and the puzzle pieces seem so drastically different. the only hint you're given is at the beginning, in which a big pair of red lips sings to you as you get a one or two word description of some pieces.

the first piece you get is that this is a sci-fi story. then, that Brad and Janet are a young couple that are very in love. third, that they're going to see an old friend who was described by the big red lips.

from just the first three days, you understand nothing, and not how it connects at all. how does this being a sci-fi story fit into this couple and their old high school teacher?

then, after the first week, you feel as though nothing is connecting aside from Brad and Janet sort of connecting to everything but not really. a guy got murdered? there's a gay mad scientist? there's a creation? who are all these characters? what happened to going to meet that friend? you feel as though nothing connects and nothing makes any sense. some people, especially those not privy to a puzzle about gay mad scientists, will either stop opening boxes altogether, or stop paying attention to the pieces they're getting.

for the next week, you're still confused as to what's going on, what the picture might be. though, if you pay close attention, you can start to put things together, such as that Riff Raff does not like Frank-N-Furter, and that Frank sleeps around. a lot. now, on most peoples first attempt on putting the puzzle together, they will not notice these things, or that they are crucial to the puzzle as a whole.

It's not until the 17th (still going with the puzzle advent calendar thing) that pieces start being obviously connected, such as that the man who got murdered was the "old friend's" nephew, and that Frank does not like people who look at UFOs, and that Dr. Scott knows a lot about those. we start to learn that Frank's chronic "sleeping around" has an impact on those who surround him.

And then, on the last day, everything falls into place. sure, some things had started to connect earlier, and if you had not given up any hope after the first two weeks and payed close attention, you probably could've gotten a good idea of what the picture was going to be, but it's that last couple days that tell you everything.

Rocky Horror isn't a movie about "nothing", or even worse when some people (cough cough, conservatives) see the second week's pieces and think it's "all p**n no plot", you just gave up looking at the pieces because you wanted to know the picture after the first week.

[saturnniidae]

Ngl atla AUs are so funny in the sense that white people don't really exist in the original avatar universe.

I think these concepts of putting your favorite characters into such a rich and interesting world and the allure of making them benders is fun and I enjoy it myself from time to time but. There is Something be said about inserting white characters into an inherently poc centered story and world that draws inspiration from those cultures, so it falls kinda flat. (And could even come across as tasteless since the story is again inherently a poc one and has such political? I guess. Themes as like the main conflict ignoring it kinda takes away from half the worldbulding or whatever. Whaaateeeverr idk)

Again this isn't like hate to people with atla AUs I enjoy them but idk food for thought.

[genderqueersammy]

This is one of the funniest things I have ever read

[sirotras]

how exactly is anyone supposed to get excited for the next mass effect when the last THREE games bioware has made were, well

andromeda: permanently shelved, any dlc or sequels canceled

anthem: just Gone

veilguard: shelved before it even launched apparently??

like why should i bother getting invested in anything theyre making when the execs are just going to drop it no matter what it seems